Cholula, Mexico

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economic and political centres of old Mexico. Today very little of its former splendour remains apart from a gigantic earth mound concealing, if scale is anything to go by, the world's largest pyramid. From the vantage point of the top, now crowned with a church, the eye travels over the towers and domes of numerous other Spanish-built churches and monasteries which, following the Conquest, were erected over the ancient pyramids and temples. Cholula is often said to have 365 churches but in fact there are rather fewer.

History

No one knows who the early inhabitants were, i.e. the people responsible for building Cholula (actually "Atcholollan", Náhuatl: "place where the water rises") in the first place. However there was definitely a major settlement on the site by between 400 and 300 b.c. Around the beginning of the Christian era the influence of the great Classic Teotihuacán culture first seems to have made itself felt. This shows itself chiefly in the "talud-tablero" structure of Cholula's pyramidal platforms - sloping sections ("taluds") alternating with vertical rectilinear panels ("tableros") with borders. Early ceramic finds further confirm this initial chronology.

The city's central geographical position relative to a number of later pre-Columbian civilisations then saw Cholula responding stylistically to both the Monte Albán IIIb and El Tajín cultures. In the 7th c. the Xicalanca Olmec people took over the Puebla valley, retaining their hold until driven out in about 850. Shortly before 1000 the legendary god-king Quetzalcóatl (Ce Àcati Topiltzin) is reputed to have spent some considerable time here before continuing his journey to Yucatán. After the fall of Tula in 1175 bc the Toltecs and Chichimecs moved into the Cholula area, eventually forcing the city's rulers to flee to the Gulf coast.

At about this time also the influence of yet another culture, the Mixtec, already to some degree noticeable, became much more marked, giving rise to the Mixtec-Puebla culture, the outstanding achievement of which was the development of glazed polychrome ceramics. Although occupied from time to time by neighbouring powers, as a cult site Cholula remained relatively undisturbed throughout the latter part of its long pre-Hispanic history.

Together with their Tlaxcaltec allies, the Spanish conquerors under Cortés arrived in Cholula in 1519, at which time they estimated its population to be 100,000. On the pretext of a suspected ambush they brutally attacked the city and its inhabitants, unleashing a blood-bath in which between 3000 and 6000 people are thought to have been killed. They also destroyed the main temple dedicated to Quetzalcóatl. By the time the great plague epidemic of 1544-46 had finished reaping its grim harvest, Cholula's splendour had already passed into history.

The excavation of the huge pyramid was begun in 1931 under the direction of José Reygadas Vérti, his work being continued by Ignacio Marquina on behalf of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (I.N.A.H.). Investigation remains in progress today.