Church of Our Lady of Remedies, in Cholula.
When we think of great pyramids, the ones that come to mind are most likely those at Giza, in Egypt. However, the largest in the world, known as The Great Pyramid of Cholula, is hidden inside a hill in central Mexico.
Of all the images that circulate promoting specific countries or destinations for tourism, few are as spectacular as the one in Sanctuary of the Virgin of Remedieswith the Popocatépetl volcano behind, its blanket of snow on top and, at times, even smoking.
It is one of the icons of Mexico, a country whose main attraction lies in the ruins of pre-Hispanic civilizations and especially in the pyramids that are still standing, says .
It turns out that the mountain crowned by the majestic Marian temple, in reality, not a mountain but an ancient pyramid which over the centuries vegetation ended up covering, like camouflage. And this is not just any pyramid, but the one with the largest surface area and volume in the world: Cholula.
With about 450 meters wide and 65 meters highis considered the largest pyramid in the world by volume. There are even those who argue that it is the largest monument of any kind and that it may be the oldest structure used continuously in the Americas.
The municipality in the state of Puebla was once a sacred city, a role in which the Teotihuacananother place where there are two imposing pyramids of similar height that share a certain stylistic relationship.
Com 64 meters high (the one in Teotihuacán is one meter less), and although it falls short of the 70 meters of Tikal or the 76 of Petén, not to mention the 146 meters of the famous pyramid of Cheops, in Giza, its true magnitude lies in its base of 450 x 450 meters and its 4,500,000 m³which surpasses any comparison.
When the Spanish arrived in Cholula, the conqueror Hernan Cortes he was impressed by the beauty of the city. As soldiers massacred thousands of natives and systematically razed their ceremonial buildings, one of them escaped their notice.
Built with mud-based adobe bricks, the Great Pyramid of Cholula it was covered in weeds and looked like little more than a giant pile of dirt, writes the portal .
“Very few people know her,” says Geoffrey McCafferty, a former archaeologist at the University of Calgary in Canada. “I describe it in my classes as the most important pyramid you’ve never heard of.”
Despite several excavation works, “the religious center of Cholula continues to be one of the great enigmas of ancient Mesoamerica”considera McCafferty.
The Great Pyramid of Cholula is located under a mountain
When in the 30s archaeologists excavated the first tunnel in the bowels of the pyramid, they found not a single structure, but a series of pyramidseach with a facade of altars, platforms and stairs that once formed the exterior.
There is four distinct layers that portray different styles and architectures. Whoever these ancient architects were, they are only recorded in legend as a race of giants, called Quinametzinwhich were over 12 feet tall.
The pyramid’s original meaning is unclear, but McCafferty believes its creators intended it to be a axis of the world – a cosmic nexus of the underworld, Earth and heaven.
McCafferty argues that it may have served as a cemetery and sanctuary to the rain god Chiconauquiahuitl. But John Pohlan anthropologist at California State University, Los Angeles, suggests a different interpretation.
Phol believes that the Olmec-Xicalanca, who defeated the Quinametzin giants, may have decided to cover the top layer of the pyramid with adobe to create a artificial mountain dedicated to the deities Xochiquetzal and Xochipilli.
Many years later, the Spanish built a Catholic church on the top of the hill, without realizing that the pyramid was inside. Five hundred years later, The Church of Our Lady of Los Remedios still exists, crowning a legacy of two and a half millennia.
