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Cholula, Mexico: The World's Largest Pyramid

Theodore P. Druch

One of Teotihuacan's earliest trading colonies was established about sixty miles to the southeast at Acholollan, known today as Cholula.

During the 1st century BC, a pyramid was constructed here in the Talud-tablero style, an unmistakable link, but the main growth of the city occurred long afterwards, and successive pyramids grew over and absorbed the earlier, until the final large structure built here was of an unusual design.

Whoever were the people who built it, they created a pyramid stepped all the way around so that the temple on top could be approached from any direction instead of just the usual cardinal compass points. In doing this, they accomplished something much more than merely a revolutionary design in the history of Mesoamerican pyramid architecture; they also erected the largest structure ever built on the face of the Earth.

Measuring more than a quarter-mile (1476 ft) on each side, and over 200 ft tall, the volume of this pyramid is an astounding 159 million cu ft, more than twice the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

The Nahuatl Indians who may have built it, named it something that gringos are physiologically unable to pronounce but which means, rather unimaginatively I think, "artificial mountain." The name seems rather insipid in light of the monumental physical reality of the object itself and, since the pyramid complex was dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, "Mountain of the God" or something akin, would certainly have been more dramatic.

When the Toltec Indians conquered this place in 1200, it was already a ruin, though they continued to use the Temple of Quetzalcoatl as a ceremonial center. By the time the Conquistadores arrived, the almost completely earth covered pyramid was the place of anointment for Aztec kings, who believed it had been constructed by the mythological giant Xelhua (Shel-wa).

At this time, Acholollan, with about 100,000 people was second in size only to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, which maintained an uneasy alliance with the generally rebellious Toltecs who didn't fully appreciate having their cities raided for sacrificial victims.

Into this less than pacific environment, the wily Hernan Cortez, in 1519, introduced an alliance with the Cholulan Toltecs who were happy to use the Spanish firepower against their traditional and mortal foes. However, themselves no slouches in the art of perfidy, the Cholulans also made a deal with the Aztecs to attack the Spanish when they weren't looking. At least, that was the claim made by Cortez when he vowed to destroy every one of the 365 pagan temples in the city and replace it with a church after a punitive massacre during which thousands of Indians were slaughtered.

Cortez missed by a mile though; there are only thirty-nine churches in Cholula, but considering that the modern city still has a population of about 100,000, that's nothing to sneeze at. In 1666 The Capilla de la Virgen de los Remedios was built directly on top of the earthen mound under which most of the pyramid is buried, and there it still sits, the safety of its magnificently gilded interior one of the main reasons that most of the pyramid remains unexcavated. Its exposed parts, however, still half buried in the man-made mountain, do provide a line of ruins along the grassy expanse of the central plaza which is larger in size than the entire citadels of many another ancient city.

Over the last hundred and fifty years of excavation, archaeologists have dug nearly five miles of tunnels through the rock solid adobe walls of the pyramid's base; narrow and low, with bottomless pits once used as water cisterns dotted throughout. These are fenced off for the safety of those adventurous or foolish enough to use the tunnels as a way to get to the main plaza.

Maria opted for the outside route, climbing up from the street. I went for the tunnels.

Occasional light bulbs, strung along the rough and pocked walls, illuminate the passages through which we must walk single file, the tallest of us bending forward to avoid striking our heads on the roof which narrows to an almost pointed arch overhead. The bulbs, spaced about twenty feet apart, create alternating chevrons of light and dark that stretch along the arrow straight corridors diminishing into the distance; like looking into a hair salon mirror reflecting the infinity of mirrors on the other side of the shop.

Besides being eerie, which is wonderful, it's also hot and uncomfortable, and I mentally prod our guide to hurry up with his explanations of the history of Cholula and the pyramid, which he recounts every time we reach a wider opening in the tunnel and are able to gather about. But our birth will not be an easy one and, after at least half-an-hour of winding about in the claustrophobic corridors, hoping that the electricity won't fail, the blinding light of day finally reaches us as, the path suddenly ascending, we struggle to release ourselves from the pyramid's subterranean grip.

The brilliant green of the plaza greets our eyes as, squinting against the brightness, we emerge from the bowels of the gigantic monument almost overwhelmed by the vast size of the ruin now stretching around us; stepped stone feet themselves emergent from the hillside, most of the interior still interred beneath the spectacular church perched high above.

Scattered about here and there on the greensward, rectangular holes covered with heavy glass contain the remains of people buried below; bleached skulls grin at us from within the grave which swallowed them up a thousand years ago. Other holes lead down into tombs whose occupants now greet visitors from glass cases in various museums.

The site is enormous; people wandering about appear tiny against the immensity of the sloping hillside. All along its nearly 1500 ft, the many parts making up the whole of the pyramid struggle to break free of the weight of centuries of deposition of dust and dirt; generally undisturbed by human occupation, almost indistinguishable from any other tree-covered hill in the area.

And there are three more equal sides to this thing!

Here and there, large pieces of the original stucco facing cling tenaciously to the uneven rocks piled together into walls, while larger, shaped stones build stairways which ascend either into partially excavated temples, or simply disappear into the grassy slopes. Occasional excavations have revealed the angled wall of the pyramid's base descending as much as thirty feet to the bottoms of the pits cut alongside. At one corner, the remains of a section of the original, four-story talud-tablero structure have been partially reconstructed in what the archaeologists believe was its original magnificence, complete with fancy brickwork and carvings. Even this building, one of the smallest to have been buried within the Great Pyramid, is 250 ft on a side, and people climbing the hundred or so high, steep steps of the monumental western stairway are dwarfed by it.

One of the most interesting finds was a mural, almost 200 ft long, depicting what seems to be a drinking scene with figures in various stages of inebriation lounging about in a large room. Pulque, an indigenous and, I am told, extremely potent beverage fermented from the maguey aloe, seems to have played a major role in ancient religious ceremonies. Whether it was used for ordinary parties is unknown, but those of us who've spent any amount of time in college drinking orgies will recognize the scenes on the mural with a certain wistful fondness in which memories of the dry heaves and brain-wrenching hangovers take a back seat.

The trek to the top of the hill and the Capilla, takes us to one of the most beautiful churches in Mexico, where beautiful churches are "a dime a dozen."

It is difficult to find anything approaching a Gothic Cathedral in Mexico. The dark, somber, forbidding - and foreboding - atmosphere of the magnificent European churches, couldn't find an echo in Mesoamerica. The overwhelming style here is Baroque, mainly inspired by the Italian Churriguerra family of architects, often reviled in Europe for wretched excess in rococo design.

Many of Mexico's greatest churches were designed and built in this fashion, but what in Europe was kitsch, here, in the hands of skilled Indian artists and craftsmen, was transformed into a colorful and lively exposition of the ancient indigenous animistic tradition, filling their interiors and exteriors with brilliantly colored figures and designs, nominally Christian, but joyously pagan in expression. The Saints and angels were depicted with ancient symbols representing various aspects of the old gods, but eventually, under the new Spanish regime, their memory faded away and the old gods and the new became indistinguishable one from the other.

Mexican churches are filled with light, and the golden retables, altars, candlesticks and chalices glow brightly, filling them with gleaming splendor; hardly any piece of wood is not burnished with gold leaf. But the greatest glory is in the brilliantly painted figures of saints, angels, cupids, and old Indian deities which fill every nook and cranny. The over-all effect is not unlike the interior of a chandelier shop; the shapes are all different, but they're everywhere you look, and the whole makes a single brilliance.

Where the Gothic cathedrals of Europe celebrate eternal life over physical death, the churches of Mexico celebrate earthly life - colorful, vibrant, exciting life in all its aspects and forms - life, real life, far and away triumphant over death, or at least the fear of it.

An illusion, perhaps, but one which has inspired some of the most beautiful church decoration anywhere. Tiles in every shape and color decorate the exteriors, while plasterwork moldings and sculptures, painted in brilliant hues, fill every possible inch of space within; as gaudy as any tasteless European extravaganza, but with the saving grace of being authentic - an expression of the artist's true milieu rather than merely a job mimicking the style of a different time and place.         Church exteriors may be filled with carvings, painted or not, and painted tiles in pleasing patterns. They may be architecturally ornate or adobe simple, but they are always colorful and inviting, a place where people are happy to come and spend time; color and light attract not only moths. The fusion of Spanish Catholicism and Indian paganism created, to my mind, the most beautiful churches to be found anywhere on Earth.

Even in secular, non-church decoration, the Indian sensibility turned the Spanish glazed pottery from Talavera de la Reina in Spain, into something totally transformed; a fact we appreciated all the more when we visited the Spanish pottery shops several years later. We expected to see something marvelous; instead, we saw a pale prototype, for all its elegance and sophistication, of the magnificent Talavera style in Mexico.

From outside the church, a vista of magnificent proportions fills our senses. Below, the gigantic skeleton of the buried pyramid and its outliers spreads out, tiny human figures dotted about the green sea of the grassy field which engulfs them in its abundance. In the near distance, the domes and spires of Cholula's churches raise themselves above the streets and low houses of the city. In the far distance, thrusting above the sierran massif, Popocatepetl, one of the most active volcanoes on Earth, raises its glacier-covered sides nearly 18,000 ft into the clear Mexican sky, the thick plume of smoke pouring from its jagged cone providing the only cloud in the vast blue expanse of the heavens.

(This article is excerpted from my book, Footprints on a Small Planet, available at Amazon.com)

About the Author

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1939 on the eve of WWII, Theodore P. Druch, Ted to his friends, has misspent his life in various vain pursuits including an MA in Near Eastern Studies, several years as a resident at Timothy Leary's League for Spiritual Discovery in Millbrook, New York and later in an Ashram in Benson, Arizona; in San Francisco as a general contractor remodeling old Victorians (only their houses); as a neophyte computer geek helping his wife Maria in her fledgling software business; and finally, as a windblown vagabond, traipsing around the planet from one hemisphere to the other with Maria and their beloved Miniature Schnauzers Sherman and Schatzie.

Today, ensconced in a lovely house with an open atrium in the heart of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Ted has embarked upon a new incarnation as a writer, hoping to get all the above down on paper before his ultimate eviction from the world writes an unwelcome finis to his adventures.

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