Archaeologists excavating in the La Ventilla neighbourhood of Teōtīhuacān, have found that the inhabitants were linked to lapidary production, Heritage Daily reported.
Teōtīhuacān, named by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs, and loosely translated as “birthplace of the gods”, is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in the Teōtīhuacān Valley in present-day Mexico.
Teōtīhuacān’s development can be identified by four distinct consecutive phases, known as Teōtīhuacān I, II, III, and IV, with phase I beginning approximately 200 – 100 BC during the Late Formative era, when the inhabitants gathered around sacred springs in the Tethuacn Valley basin.
Many of Teōtīhuacān’s most notable monuments, including the Pyramid of the Sun (the third largest ancient pyramid after the Great Pyramid of Cholula and the Great Pyramid of Giza), the Pyramid of the Moon, the Avenue of the Dead, and the Ciudadela with the Temple of the Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl, were built during phase II.
La Ventilla, named after the present-day ranch the neighbourhood was located in, was a mix of administrative, religious, residential and craft workshops.
Previous excavations revealed that the neighbourhood was a centre for the production of luxury items, and a new project by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) is focusing their study on an architectural complex called 3B, which was occupied approximately 1,600 years ago.
Members of the city elite lived in the complex, which was linked to a lapidary production industry, as demonstrated by the finding of stone sculptures and large amounts of by-product waste materials from the production of small objects made from shell, obsidian, slate, and bone.
Archaeologists also unearthed various offerings within the complex’s three temple buildings, where the team discovered burials, one of which is an adult female who was cremated and buried with almost 900 arteifacts, including 792 clay miniatures, 43 tizate figures, and 95 tiny vases.
