Exploring the Zocalo

This is the spot where legend says the Aztecs saw the eagle on a cactus, with a serpent in its beak

Today was the day to explore the Zocalo. The Zoca-what? The Zocalo!

The Zocalo is the historic core of Mexico City. It is where the Aztecs built the religious center of their capital city of Tenochtitlan. Hernando Cortes destroyed Tenochtitlan in its entirety and built the capital of Spain's Mexico on the city, over the ruins of the former Aztec city.

I was supposed to take one of those "free walking tours" where you pay only by tipping your guide. We were to meet at the Palacio de Belles Artes. Look for the pink umbrella! Well, I saw the pink umbrella and was told that there was no English language tour (even though I had booked one in advance) and only Spanish. Well, with free tours, you get what you pay for. So I organized my own "free" walking tour of the Zocalo.

First stop, was this interesting looking church.

This is the Templo de San Felipe Neri.

It barely rates a mention on any maps, but it was beautiful inside.

I was walking the extremely crowded pedestrian-only street Avenida Francisco I. Madero to get from the Palacio de Bellas Artes to the Zocalo.  The walk was about five or six short blocks. And soon I arrived at the Zocalo.

This is the Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México, the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.

The exterior is absolutely gorgeous. Built with the stones that built the Templo Mayor of the Aztecs' Tenochtitlan. And before you complain, let me leave you with one word: recycling. Recycling is a good thing, isn't it?

 

This is a giant Mexican flag on the Zocalo. Things were happening on the Zocalo. Maybe Christmas related. Maybe the COVID. Maybe to prevent anti-government demonstrations from happening here. But most of the Zocalo was closed off and you could only walk around the perimeter.

But at the south end of the square is this monument:

This is a monument built to mark the exact spot where, according to legend, the Aztecs saw an eagle on a cactus with a serpent in its beak -- eagles are fraught with symbolism and the snake -- well, that's the earthly representation of Quetzalcoatl. From this vision, the Aztecs decided this was the place to build their capital city of Tenochtitlan. The monument incorporates water. I'm not sure if the symbolism was intended, but given that Tenochtitlan was a speck of land in the middle of a huge lake, it is appropriate.

Time for a look-see inside the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral:

Very nice.

But not "knock your sox off" awesome.

The socks stayed on. In fairness, that was a side chapel.

Outside the cathedral was some sort of indigenous ceremony of some sort:

I am guessing that the gentleman in native garb going over with smoke the body of the man with the outstretched arms was some sort of purification ceremony. But it looked like something TSA would do. Only the uniform of the Aztec TSA agent was far cooler than that worn by actual TSA.

Next up, the opportunity to explore the active archaeological site at the northeast end of the Zocalo.

A map of Tenochtitlan! I love maps and I especially love giant relief maps. So of course I snapped a photo.

And this is a rendering of the religious center -- which was right on this site -- for Tenochtitlan.

And this is the re-creation of Tenochtitlan with the cathedral built with its own stone:

Juxtaposed!

They do let you walk through this archaeological site. Well, at least part of it:

At least something is not shut down because of the COVID.

And here be me:

Among the ruins.

And we meet a conejo, otherwise known as the rabbit:

I don't understand this "rabbits as gods" thing. Fertility gods, maybe. Behold, your god of fecundity!

And here is a serpent head:

And, by now, if you've been following my Mexico City adventures, you now know this:

Snakehead = Quetzalcoatl.

Let's go back into the main part of the cathedral while we're here:

Magnificent altar piece:

And now down the other side:

This is the main aisle down the center:

And this is the outside of the exit door:

Again, spectacular amazing beautiful exterior with a very nice interior that falls a little short of magnificent.  A++ exterior. B+ inside.

And here is Saint John Paul II:

And here is the exterior with cactus garden:

And, soon enough, we are back at the Palacio de Belles Artes.

I have completed my free walking tour -- well -- not quite free -- I did have to pay a token amount for entrance into the Templo Mayor archaeological site (80 pesos if I remember correctly, which is about $4.00 U.S.)

 

Thus concludes the walking tour of the Zocalo. Now it is time for a long walk back to my hotel. It was only about 5km.

The Main Reason for Visiting CDMX: the Anthropology Museum

The Stone of the Sun. The most important archaeological artifact from Aztec culture. Yes.

There are two reasons why CDMX drifted to the top of my "must-see" list. Saturday I visit the pre-Aztec center of indigenous Mexican culture, Teotihuacan. Today, I visited El Museo Nacional de Antropología, the Anthropology Museum.

You know I love me some quirky off-beat, off-the-beaten-track museums. This wasn't one of them. This is one of the world's great museums.  It is probably the preeminent archaeology / anthropology museum in all of the Americas.  But, first, let's walk a little around the old barrio of Cuauhtemoc, my home for the next few days.

This is the Diana Fountain.  It is called that because of the statue of the Roman goddess of the hunt, Diana, at the top of the waters.  See the bow she is firing?  You may know her better by her Greek name, Artemis.

Next:  El Ángel de la Independencia.

Can you translate that from Spanish into English?

It is the Angel of Independence, one of the signature statues in all of CDMX.  Built to commemorate Mexican independence.  Angel of Victory on top.

That is a perfectly fine name for that piece of public art.  Unlike this:

The Estela de Luz.  The stele of light.  Built in 2011 to commemorate the bicentennial of Mexican independence.  It is all dark metal structure, meant to evoke the "stele" of various meso-American cultures -- "stele" being tall stone memorials -- we have "stele" today, which we typically limit to cemetery headstones -- but those are stele.  But where's the "luz"?  Where's the light?  It's not lit up.  I walked past tonight after dark.  It's not lit up at night.  There is no "luz" in the Estela de Luz.  It's a rip-off.

But even the stinker of the Estela de Luz could not dampen my spirit.  Only a few minutes of walking time and I arrived:

El Museo Nacional de Antropología.

As soon as you pay your money and enter the main section of the museum, you are greeted by this enormous fountain:

The first section is a general review of the descent of man, australopithecus, homo erectus, and all that.  Then there was a section of man crossing the land bridge from Asia during the most recent ice age, a theory which may not quite be at the point of being debunked, but is teetering on the brink after the discovery of Meadowcroft Village in Western Pennsylvania (and another site in Chile) that appear to pre-date the opening of the land bridge. Then we got to the good stuff.

Yes, duck-shaped pottery constitutes the "good stuff."  But it's only the appetizer course.  As is the armadillo-shaped pot on the far left of this picture:

 

And of course there are tomb re-creations.

I believe this part is now the Teotihuacan part of the exhibit. From this point forward, through the rest of the first floor, it is pure, unadulterated, awesome:

I'm not going to comment when I cannot recall where a piece fits temporally and geographically.  I'll just let you soak in the awesome:

I absolutely love this stuff.  This, to me, rivals the works of the great masters.

And this one is a stele from Tikal:

There was not much from Tikal on display, probably because Tikal is in Guatemala and Guatemala is a sovereign country in its own right and Mexico's national museum is not going to be Tikal-centric.  Despite the extreme awesomeness that is Tikal in Guatemala's Peten region.

This is from one of the Oaxaca cultures.

Monte Alban, perhaps?  Mogote, maybe?

I'm guessing this is a jaguar.  It looks almost Chinese, doesn't it?

This is a throne.

In Mayan culture, maybe other meso-American cultures, thrones were flat stones that the ruler could sit upon and, well, rule.

This guy looks surprised about something:

Maybe he never expected to be stone sitting in Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.

This one made me giggle to myself:

There is a little tiny head in the posterior area of the stone statue.  A real "butt head," so to speak.

Yes, anthropology and ancient cultures can be fun.

That is a recreation of ancient ball court.  The various meso-American cultures (Maya, in particular) loved their ball games, which were played with a hard rubber ball.  The trick was to get the ball through the hole in what looks like a stone tire on the side.  What did the winner win?  The right to get sacrificed to the gods!

Talk about Pyrrhic victories.

These two looked, to me, at least, like "Humpty Dumpty Does Day of the Dead." YMMV.

And now we enter the heart and soul of the museum:

This is the section on "Mexica," or Aztec, culture, which arrived in the Valley of Mexico sometime after 1200.

This is a re-creation and map of the Aztec capital: Tenochtitlan.

Where is Tenochtitlan today?  Can you visit it?  Yes, sort of.  The Spanish conquistadors buried Tenochtitlan underneath the modern "zocalo," or city center, of Mexico City.

That is why many of the artifacts in the "Mexica" section of the museum were discovered excavating the Mexico City subway.  Tenochtitlan was literally buried underneath the modern city.

This is a coyote.  A cute puppy-dog looking coyote.

This is that coyote, only with a coiled snake:

And here is the Stone of the Sun, the main photo-op spot in the museum.

And at this point we exit "Mexica" and continue on are journey.

Next stop:  Oaxaca!

These are the artifacts of Monte Alban:

Next stop: the Olmec.

The Olmec lived along the Gulf Coast (expensive real estate!) near modern day Veracruz.  This is one of the most important surviving artifacts of Olmec culture, Cabeza Colosal.  Colossal Head.

From another angle:

The Olmec were known for carving giant heads, a few of which have survived until today.

Here's a cutie:

This one is the water god.

Actually, I think he made a latte for me a couple of weeks ago.

And this is the rabbit god:

Yes.  They had a rabbit god.

We are now in Maya territory:

This one looks P.O.-ed:

This one is from Calakmul:

Evil Calakmul.  Eeevil.  With three e's.  Why?  They were the militaristic rival to Tikal in the latter centuries of the first millennia A.D.  I'm on Team Tikal, so that makes Calakmul eeevil.

And now we move into Western Mexico indigenous cultures.  We start with a sculpture (pottery) that looked, to me, at least (I was tired at this point), the Tin Man.

This looked like an inviting bench to sit on but, alas, it was part of the collection.

Let's end with that one.  The second floor was an ethnographic museum, full of native costumes, decorations, and musical instruments.  Not my thing.  And, besides, I had been walking the museum for nearly three hours. 

And that's a lot of museum-ing.  Back to the hotel for a spa afternoon.