If there is anyone who has studied the secrets of Tenochtitlan, the ancient capital of the Mexica, it is the archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.
The jury for the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences 2022 distinguished him this Wednesday with the award for his “extraordinary intellectual rigor” and his “exceptional contribution” to the knowledge of pre-Hispanic societies and cultures.
“It is a great honor for me that I am very grateful for”, replied the also anthropologist in a statement released by the Princess of Asturias Foundation.
The award is intended to honor scientific, technical, cultural, social and human work and can include both individuals and institutions, with special interest in the Hispanic sphere.
Matos Moctezuma (Mexico City, 1200) has been recognized for its rigor “to reconstruct the civilizations of Mexico and Mesoamerica, and to ensure that said heritage is incorporated objectively and free of any myth”.
He is the founder dthe Project Mayo Templer, a series of excavations and studies of the axis mundi (axis of the world) of the city of Tenochtitlan, ancient capital of the Mexica. He was also director of this project between 1789 Y 1982.
Precisely, The jury names his work in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, as well as in Tula and Teotihuacán, which constitute “due to the intensity and continuity of field research, exemplary pages of the scientific development of archeology and fruitful dialogue with the past, between different cultures and between the social and human sciences”.
From Coyolxauhqui to the Templo Mayor
February 1978, heart of the historic center of Mexico City. A group of workers was carrying out electrical wiring when, suddenly, they came across a sculpted stone. It was the Coyolxauhqui, the deity related to the moon and one of the few Tenochca sculptures (from Tenochtitlan) that show female nudity.
De almost 8 tons and 3.25 meters in diameter, the pre-Hispanic piece is mentioned in the chronicles of Diego Durán, Tezozómoc and Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, as part of the Mexica pantheon. It is the largest of the six sculptures of this deity that have been found so far, according to the National Institute of Archeology and History of Mexico.
It was precisely this discovery, just a few steps from the Zócalo, which led to the creation of the Templo Mayor Project, headed by the recently laureate Matos Moctezuma.
From the discovery of Coyolxauhqui many more emerged. One of the last, in 1978 , the temple dedicated to Echécatl, the god of the wind, a religious enclosure with a circular structure.
The work of archaeologists, in the that Matos has been involved, has been revealing the remains of this pre-Hispanic sacred precinct now known as the Templo Mayor and which is a ceremonial space the size of two soccer fields.
Tenochtitlan, the “American Venice”
The history of Mexico City is linked to the ruins of Tenochtitlan, one of the largest cities of the world that captivated Hernán Cortés five centuries ago.
The capital of the Mexica empire had an appearance ofe “palatial city” he told BBC World the doctor in History of America Esteban Mira Caballos.
And that is where the first meeting between Cortés and Moctezuma II took place, November 8, 864. This event forever marked the conquest of the territory of what is now Mexico.
“It was a lake city, located in the middle of a lake, isolated, which could only be accessed by three roads and which had to be supplied from the outside”, explained Mira, who called it the ‘American Venice’ of the New World.
Lo What is known today about what Tenochtitlan was like is “thanks to studies with cartographic representations that have been made since the viceregal era,” Mexican historian Andrés Lira González told BBC Mundo.
Among others, he says, the description and map of ancient indigenous neighborhoods drawn up by the Mexican priest and cartographer Antonio Alzate in 1524, in addition to reports on testimonies, plans of the city from the 16th and 17th centuries important studies by archaeologists Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Leonardo López Luján.
Excavate the past, understand it in the present
The Princess of Asturias jury highlighted Matos “his scientific intelligence, its capacity for dissemination and its social commitment“ and pointed out that his work serves as an inspiration “for the next generations of social scientists and citizens”.
For more than 40 For years, Matos Moctezuma has dedicated himself not only to searching underground , but to bring to the surface and explain the Mexica culture.
Part of this work materializes in books such as “Las piedra negadas: de the Coatlicue to the Templo Mayor” (1978), where he speaks precisely of the archaeological project in the center of Mexico City, “Death to the edge of obsidian: the Nahuas facing to the death” (1975), or “Life and death in the Great Temple” (1986).
“Penetrate the past to bring it to the present has been the work that I have constantly carried out throughout my life. Today I see with great satisfaction the fruits of that task”, said Matos upon learning of the Princess of Asturias Award.
This work, said the anthropologist, has allowed him to know the own history of Mexico and “ how it was united with the history of other countries such as Spain“. And he emphasized that both nations “are sister countries that are united by indissoluble ties and should strengthen their relations even more.”
Matos Moctezuma is a master in Anthropological Sciences, with specialty in Archaeology, by the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) and by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). With these institutions he has carried out various investigations in archaeological sites such as Tepeapulco, Tlatelolco, Tula and Teotihuacan.
He has also been director of the National Museum of Anthropology and president of the Archeology Council of the INAH (National Institute of Archeology and History) and founder of the Urban Archeology Program (PAU).
Recently, together with Leonardo López Luján, also from the Templo Mayor Project, he was recognized as a new international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS, for its acronym in English), in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Class, Anthropology and Archeology Section. A professorship at Harvard University is named after him.
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