HELLO, STEEMERS!!! XD
It has been a wild week,
since I have been giving time to get to know this environment. A great portion of information I see goes to sharing things that can be profitable for one or both sides of the screen. This I say because I see a community a bit worried about making profit and not to share quality content. I believe this ought to change in a while, when the community is so large, that you will see companies buying a lot of steempower to influence the information around, and I see myself with a big enough community, being formed primarily by the rest of the people who is worried about honesty and quality of content, which will be felt by any reader/follower.
Now it's time
to share this great information in regard to tourism/anthropology.
The largest pyramid
in the world is a vast mystery. I will start by telling you what we are talking about here. There are a lot of unknown pyramids in the world. Over the course of the digital era, a lot of information about them can be available on the net, and I am very interested on learning about them. Anyways, I have the privilege of inhabiting the very town where the largest pyramid in the world rests, and that is Cholula, Puebla, Mx.
The pyramid is
located in the middle of the town! and it has been very influential in the lives of the people who live around it, including myself. Cholula is about 7 Km. from the city of Puebla which is one of the bigger cities in the country, with 1.4 million people in its core, and about 4 to 5 million is you take into consideration the metropolitan area. The city of Cholula took part on the commercial net with the Teotihuacán city and, it's thought that was inhabited by people from the south-western part of the state, but after Teotihuacán's decline, probably was repopulated by people from the gulf, descendants of Olmeca culture. Afterwards came the Toltecas, only to be conquered by the Aztecas, who created an alliance against the neighbouring Tlaxcaltecas. Its great importance lied on its strategic location, in the middle of the communication and connection channel between the great Tenochtitlán and the south-eastern region of the country (mayan), as well as with the gulf region.
The dimensions
of the pyramid are unbelievable. The great pyramid of Cholula, dedicated to Tláloc (deity of abundance and fertility, as well as change and transformation through water) is the one with the largest base -yet found- on earth (450 mts. per side), and with a highest point reaching 65 mts, it might not be the highest, although is actually higher than the major pyramid in Teotihuacán. It is a big chunk of 4.5 million cubic mts. of rock and it is incredible that you can see it from any point of the town!
Now, you should
know that there's a lot more to the story. It is a mystery who built it, since the architectural style of the pyramid is very mixed. On one hand you have certain features of the Toltec influence, but on the other hand you have characteristics of the mayan influence! (which sounds a bit weird, knowing that the Mayas were historically located WAY down to the south-east). The site seems to have been closed since pre-hispanic times, due to the fact that it was covered in mud bricks, and therefor with vegetation as well, so it looks as a strangely shaped hill. When could this happen and why? Well it surely happened way before the rise of the Aztec power, because when the náhuatl speaking people (which was the language of the Aztecs, and the last indigenous trace in the region nowadays) came, they rose to the peak of the hill and put an altar right there. I don't really know if it was before or after the altar building, they could have decided to farm on the skirts of the hill, or something like that which required digging to surface of it, only to find that its soil was not natural, but made by hand (meaning manmade mud bricks). So for that matter, they have called it "Tlachihualtépetl", which means: Tlachihual = Handcrafted or Manmade, and Tepetl = which means Elevation, Hill or Mountain; thus meaning the hill that was handcrafted.
Now it gets better,
because, after the Spanish people came to the Anáhuak (Mesoamerica), having conquered the city, they saw this little altar on top, same altar that they would destroy only to build a chapel instead (as they did with all the remaining buildings and sanctuaries), which is now the Virgen de los Remedios Church. So, understanding the catholic presence in Mexican recent and modern life, you could imagine the importance of that church (an interesting topic that I will approach some other time), as well as the difficulty on the subject of bringing and digging the pyramid out for all to see in its full splendors. Thus, the National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) has mediated between the need to study and visit the site, and the cultural and religious importance of the church on top. So now (and since the 60s-70's) you can go through some tunnels underneath the pyramid's surface so you can see some stairs and also figure out the depth it has towards the base at the bottom. It's just remarkable.
Afterwards, when you
get out of the tunnels (and get your eyes a bit blinded by the sun XD ), you can go to step-2 of the course; that is the called garden of the altars, or square of the altars. There is a very interesting part of the pyramid that could be dug out and exposed without compromising the stability of the church on top. On that square you can find the most interactively mind-blowing part of all the site: You stand in front of an altar that has a stairway behind, then you start clapping your hands towards it, the results are unbelievable; the echo of the claps you get from the stairs comes back distorted. Some of the frequencies go up to the sky (so you don't hear them) and the rest of the others remain available for you to hear, because they bounce right back at you. The impressive point is that the echo you receive from your clapping hands is a sound just like the sound that Quetzal bird make. Here you can see our friend trying his best in a very quick video. :0
Whats the best way
to get here? Well the best way is to get invited by me and get the full tour, he he he. I have to say that it depends on where you are coming from, but lets depart from a generic point and that is Mx city. From México city there are a lot of bus companies that come to Puebla, but the main ones are Estrella Roja and ADOgl. ADOgl goes straight to Puebla's bus station called CAPU. Estrella Roja can take you there as well as to another bus station called "4 Poniente" which is closer to Cholula but not as easy to get cheap transportation from; so you better go to CAPU. Once there, you can ask for the local buses area, and ask for the Cholula buses, the ones that are red and white coloured. Any of those will take you to Cholula but you better ask for the one that brings you to the "Zócalo de Cholula".
I hope you
enjoyed the ride and remember to keep on visiting the world, lets not miss out!
Ahó,
AugusRG
If you liked the article, remember to UPVOTE - FOLLOW - COMMENT - RESTEEM!
Sources for this article:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Pir%C3%A1mide_de_Cholula
https://delange.org/Cholula/Cholula.htm
http://inah.gob.mx/es/zonas/12-zona-arqueologica-de-cholula
Keep on blossoming!! :D
