The offerings might have been a kind of “foundation stone” ceremony to start the construction of the massive structure more than 1,900 years ago. “We know that it was deposited as part of a consecration ritual for the construction of the Pyramid of the sun,” said INAH archaeologist Enrique Pérez.
Alejandro Sarabia, Saburo Sugiyama, Enrique Pérez Cortés and Nawa Sugiyama, were the archaeologists involved in the discoveries. The offerings were found after following and old tunnel dug through the pyramid in the 1930s that narrowly missed the center, and then dug small extensions around it.
According to History.com Teotihuacan was “founded by an as-yet-unidentified group around 100 B.C., the ruined city of Teotihuacan features some of the largest pyramids built in the pre-Columbian Americas, along with temples, palaces, apartment-style complexes and remarkably preserved murals. At its height the settlement may have been home to some 200,000 people. By the time the Aztecs discovered the once-thriving hub around 1300, however, it had been abandoned for centuries, perhaps as a result of famine, drought or warfare. Roughly 200 feet high and 700 feet wide, the Pyramid of the Sun towers over Teotihuacan’s other buildings.”
The green stone mask is so delicately carved and detailed that archaeologists believe it may have been a portrait. They also found seven burials, some of them infant remains, thought to be part of the consecratory ritual that included human sacrifices.
The findings point to the earliest days of the Teotihuacan culture and it may sparks a discussion about the original linking of the pyramid; to the sun, the underworld or to the god of rain, Tlaloc, who was also considered a war god in some early versions of the deity.
