Teotihucan institutional system

Mesoamerica

Teotihuacan Institutional System

The people who built and lived in the once mighty city of Teotihuacan are no longer alive to tell us what their life was like. We cannot ask them what they ate or how they dressed, what inspired them to make art or to go to war, what they feared and what they dreamed about. They are all dead and their stories have died with them. However, there remains one way in which these lost people can tell us about their lives.

The people of Teotihuacan left their city behind for us and the remains of that city can tell us a great deal about how the people once lived. We might even say that what is left of the city tells us a story of the past. This story is missing parts, just as the city's ruins are also missing parts, and so we cannot know everything about who lived there and how they lived. But we can learn and understand a lot of the people of Teotihuacan by looking at what remains of their once grand city.

Teotihuacan is important not only because of what it can tell us about itself but also because it provides clues into other cities that were alive in the same region at the same time. Teotihuacan was the largest city of the region when it was at its height; in fact, it was the largest city in the New World. The fact that it was so large is an essential piece of why it was successful. Teotihuacan could conquer other cities because it had the largest armies. It also influenced other cities even during a peace because it made the best jewelry, art, and buildings. Other cities tried to be like Teotihuacan.

Being the largest city in the region gave it a number of advantages. The first of these was that having a large population meant that not everyone had to spend all of their time just surviving. While some people were busy farming, hunting, and ensuring that there was enough water for the city, other people could make art, serve as priests, build the temples, and establish ways to trade with other cities in the region. The fact that the city was so large also meant that it could send armies out to overrun other cities.

This is also an important part of why the city was so powerful and could last so long as a major city. One of the most interesting things about Teotihuacan is that it shares a number of features with other cities in the region. It is impossible to know when we look back on the city now exactly where ideas first came from, that is, if ideas and practices came from Teotihuacan and then spread to other cities or came first from other cities and then spread to Teotihuacan afterwards.

What we can know is that many of the features that existed in Teotihuacan were also present in other cities. Because Teotihuacan was the largest and most powerful city in the region for many, many years, it makes sense that many of the shared features in the different cities would have come from Teotihuacan as it traded with other towns or conquered them. Teotihuacan was also the most prestigious city in the region and so would have prompted other cities to copy it -- just like today when artists copy New York and Paris so that they can be seen as making the most modern art.

Among the things that Teotihuacan shared with other cities in the region was a grid system not terribly different from a modern American city, with streets crossing each other at right angles. Teotihuacan also had a water (or irrigation) system that was very common in cities in the region at that time. This water system channeled rainwater into storage areas so that water was available during dry seasons.

Teotihuacan was the home to a number of temples, and the style of these temples influenced many others in the region, especially Mayan temples. This is an especially important point because Teotihuacan was not a Mayan city. The fact that Mayans would copy the temple design of Teotihuacan for their own most sacred buildings proves how important the city was to the whole region. This is the same as today's Muslims using the design of Christian cathedrals when they build a mosque.