The Pyramid of the Moon

PYRAMID OF THE MOON

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The Moon Pyramid is located at the northern end of the Avenue of the Dead. Facing south, the pyramid was built as the principal monument of the Moon Pyramid complex. The five-tiered platform was attached to the front of the Moon Pyramid. It is said that the present pyramid has interior structures within it. However, the pyramid still remains as one of the least understood major monuments in Teotihuacan.

Figure 1:The five tiers of the facing platform for the pyramid.

Figure 2: The pyramid, looking north from the Avenue of the Dead.

Figure 3: View from atop the pyramid, facing south.

Little is known for certain of this massive edifice, but one thing is for sure; the builders are no longer with us, and the only fingerprints they left behind are these structures. Nothing more has been found on the highly skilled architects that designed them, the enormously intelligent engineers that coordinated the workers, or the agriculturalists who fed them for the time during construction.

The fact that this sort of evidence is severely lacking for the culture that inherited these structures is evidence in itself that the peoples that resided there, and added to the "City of the Gods", during the time of Christ and beyond, were not the original builders. They built structures, they build homes, but they were not responsible for the construction for the fourth largest pyramid known to man, the Pyramid of the Moon. They merely added to Teotihuacan's magnificence.

As yet, the possibility of hidden chambers and interior structures has not been explored. Some work has been done, though nothing thorough, as has been done in other sites, such as Giza, Egypt. Recently, underground structures have been found, as detailed by this press article.

Other chambers have been found within the Pyramid of the Moon, though these appear to have been added after its construction, and as such have no bearing on its dating.

Although slightly smaller than its counterpart, the Pyramid of the Sun, it is actually at the same elevation from sea level. This is due to the fact that it was built on higher ground, the same way that the Great Pyramid (attributed to the Pharoah Khufu) and the Second Pyramid (attributed to the Pharoah Khafre) of Giza, Egypt, are displaced so that the larger of the two (the Great Pyramid) appears similar in height to the smaller (being the Second Pyramid).

Back to Teotihuacan. Or, across to the Pyramid of the Sun, or across to the Ciudadela, or across to the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl.