The Teotihuacanos

In The Teotihuacanos: Masters of the City of the Gods, Elliot Rowan explores the civilization that created one of the greatest cities of the ancient Americas. Rising in the Basin of Mexico nearly two thousand years ago, Teotihuacan grew into a vast metropolis of pyramids, temples, apartment compounds, workshops, and ceremonial avenues, becoming a center of political power, religion, commerce, and cultural influence whose reach extended across much of Mesoamerica.

Drawing on archaeological discoveries, murals, burials, monumental architecture, material evidence, and inscriptions preserved by neighboring civilizations, Rowan reconstructs the world of a people who left no deciphered historical chronicles of their own. He examines the construction of the Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon, the mystery surrounding Teotihuacan's government, its multicultural neighborhoods and specialized craftsmen, its religious traditions and ritual sacrifices, and the extensive networks that carried its obsidian, symbols, and influence as far as the Maya cities of Guatemala.

More than the story of an extraordinary ancient metropolis, this book reveals how Teotihuacan transformed the political and cultural landscape of Mesoamerica. Although the city declined and its original builders disappeared from historical memory, later civilizations continued to regard its immense ruins with reverence. Its pyramids still dominate the Valley of Mexico today, preserving the legacy of a civilization whose achievements remain monumental even as many of its deepest mysteries endure.