Page 167 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Chapter 22

City of the Gods

The overwhelming message of a large number of Central American
legends is that the Fourth Age of the world ended very badly. A
catastrophic deluge was followed by a long period during which the light
of the sun vanished from the sky and the air was filled with a tenebrous
darkness. Then:

The gods gathered together at Teotihuacan [‘the place of the gods’] and wondered
anxiously who was to be the next Sun. Only the sacred fire [the material
representation of Huehueteotl, the god who gave life its beginning] could be seen
in the darkness, still quaking following the recent chaos. ‘Someone will have to
sacrifice himself, throw himself into the fire,’ they cried, ‘only then will there be a
Sun.’
1
A drama ensued in which two deities (Nanahuatzin and Tecciztecatl)
immolated themselves for the common good. One burned quickly in the
centre of the sacred fire; the other roasted slowly on the embers at its
edge ‘The gods waited for a long time until eventually the sky started to
glow red as at dawn. In the east appeared the great sphere of the sun,
life-giving and incandescent ...’
2
It was at this moment of cosmic rebirth that Quetzalcoatl manifested
himself. His mission was with humanity of the Fifth Age. He therefore
took the form of a human being—a bearded white man, just like
Viracocha.
In the Andes, Viracocha’s capital was Tiahuanaco. In Central America,
Quetzalcoatl’s was the supposed birth-place of the Fifth Sun,
Teotihuacan, the city of the gods.
3

1 Pre-Hispanic Gods of Mexico, pp. 25-6.
Ibid., pp. 26-7.
2
3 Ancient America, Time-Life International, 1970, p. 45; Aztecs: Reign of Blood and
Splendour, p. 54; Pre-Hispanic Gods of Mexico, p. 24.

165