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Back in April 2023, I took a trip to visit Mexico City for the first time with some friends. I wanted to however, make sure I spent some personal time visiting the many pre-Columbian Mesoamerican archaeological ruins in the “Valley of Mexico” while I was there.
During the course of the trip, I found the Pyramid of Tenayuca to be the most interesting to me because, while it was founded somewhere around 1200 AD, it was continuously inhabited and traded hands until at some point after the Spanish conquest.
From an architectural history perspective, what really stood out about the Pyramid of Tenayuca was that after the Aztecs conquered this area, much of their future architectural works were greatly influenced by the designs from this pyramid (namly the double pyramid style). To quote the temples entry in Wikipedia:
“Aztec temple architecture primarily developed at Tenayuca, which has the earliest example yet found of the typical Aztec double pyramid, which consists of joined pyramidal bases supporting two temples. After Tenayuca came under Aztec dominance, the Aztecs adopted this innovative style for the worship of their own deities.”
-at Tenayuca, Av. Gran Pirámide, San Bartolo Tenayuca, Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico, Mexico
