Page 168 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Teotihuacan.

The Citadel, the Temple and the Map of Heaven

Teotihuacan, 50 kilometres north-east of Mexico City
I stood in the airy enclosure of the Citadel and looked north across the
morning haze towards the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. Set amid
grey-green scrub country, and ringed by distant mountains, these two
great monuments played their parts in a symphony of ruins strung out
along the axis of the so-called ‘Street of the Dead’. The Citadel lay at the
approximate mid point of this wide avenue which ran perfectly straight
for more than four kilometres. The Pyramid of the Moon was at its
northern extreme, the Pyramid of the Sun offset somewhat to its east.
In the context of such a geometric site, an exact north-south or east-
west orientation might have been expected. It was therefore surprising
that the architects who had planned Teotihuacan had deliberately chosen
to incline the Street of the Dead 15° 30’ east of north. There were several
theories as to why this eccentric orientation had been selected, but none
was especially convincing. Growing numbers of scholars, however, were
beginning to wonder whether astronomical alignments might have been
involved. One, for example, had proposed that the Street of the Dead
might have been ‘built to face the setting of the Pleiades at the time when
it was constructed’. Another, Professor Gerald Hawkins, had suggested
4

4 The Ancient Kingdoms of Mexico, p. 67.

166