Researchers Find Aztec Temple Platform In Mexico, Not Closer To The Tomb To Find An Emperor

Archaeologists have found a round platform Aztec ceremony strewn with stone sculptures of the heads of the snakes in Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruins, raising hopes in the search for the tomb of an emperor, authorities said.

It is the tomb of Aztec ruler has never been found and investigators have been in five years of research to find the tomb of the king of the Templo Mayor of the field, the most important complex of two pyramids, and several smaller structures, which included a ceremonial and spiritual center of the pre-Hispanic Aztec empire.

Mexico National Institute of History and Anthropology said the stone platform about 15 yards (meters) in diameter and probably built around the 1469th year Site is located in central Mexico, which was built by the Spanish conquerors to the top of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.

"The historical record says that the leaders were burned at the foot of the Templo Mayor, and is believed to be on the same structure - the cuauhxicalco" - the leaders were incinerated, "said the archaeologist Raul Barrera.

"This is the historical sources say," he said, referring to accounts by Catholic priests, the soldiers involved in the Spanish conquest in 1521. "Of course, now we have to find archaeological evidence to confirm that."

He said the platform, which is still being excavated, was brought to light gradually in recent months. It covers at least 19 heads of snakes, each about half a meter (yard) long.

Barrera has accounts in 1500 proposed the platform was also used in a colorful ceremony, the priest descended from Aztec pyramid near a snake of paper and burn it to the platform.

Records show a total of five such platforms, the temple complex. One was found several years ago, but the start was far from the place ritually important, at the foot of the pyramid, where the observation was made.

In 1997, archaeologists with the radar in a place close to where the stone platform was found later detected underground chambers they believe possible at this time may contain the remains of Emperor Ahuizotl, who ruled the Aztecs when Columbus landed in the New World.

Further searches turned into a sort of staircase leading down and a lot of ritual offerings of shells, animal bones and pottery, but not serious.

Archaeologists Find of such agreement would be very significant.

"This would be quite an important find, and Aztec archeology," said Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, who is not connected to the dig. "It would be extremely important, because it would be direct information about kingship, burial and the empire, it is difficult to obtain otherwise."

He says that research shows "inching closer to the archaeologists to find the tomb of Aztec real."



For more interesting topics related to archaeology, visit archaeology excavations.