Teotihuacan's collapse around 550 CE brought targeted burning of elite and monumental buildings; recent scholarship favors multiple causes, with drought and famine possibly feeding both internal rebellion and outside attack. By about 750 CE the city stood abandoned, yet Aztecs later pilgrimaged here as mythical Tollan, home of the sun. 🔥🏛️
Teotihuacan collapsed c. 550 CE; drought, famine and attack cited as causes
MexicoTheory
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Key facts
- The city's collapse occurred around 550 CE
- The video describes it as a dramatic, violent event marked by systematic burning and destruction of monumental buildings, particularly those of the elite and ruling classes, indicating targeted rather than universal destruction
- Recent scholarship favors a multifactorial explanation, with drought and famine potentially triggering both internal rebellion and external incursions by neighboring populations
- By around 750 CE the great city was completely abandoned, though various populations continued to occupy the site in smaller numbers
- During Aztec times, centuries later, Teotihuacan became a pilgrimage place identified with the mythical Tollan, where the gods created the sun
- Some ~42 undeciphered glyphs from the Plaza of the Glyphs at La Ventanilla, one of the city's neighborhoods, and a recent study have proposed that Teotihuacan writing recorded a Uto-Aztecan language, suggesting Nahua-speaking populations were present at the city's founding
Sources
lugares.inah.gob.mx
Linked in video description
After Teotihuacan: A View of Collapse and Reorganizationjstor.org
by SC Clayton · 2016 · Cited by 27 — Teotihuacan was in decline and that the state's political influence over communities in the southern basin waned during the C.E. 500s.
Search for clues may explain the collapse of ancient city in ...news.iastate.edu
“A popular theory about the collapse of Teotihuacan is that foreign invaders were responsible for the fire and the collapse of the state. To ...
“Interesting Times”: Teotihuacan Comes Apart and a New ...cambridge.org
The Decline and Fall of Teotihuacan: 500/550–550/650 CE. By 550 CE or perhaps a little earlier, the population of the city seems to have begun to decline, ...
The collapse of Teotihuacan and the regeneration ...sciencedirect.com
by SC Clayton · 2020 · Cited by 14 — Teotihuacan, a powerful state that flourished for several centuries in central Mexico before collapsing by 600 CE, is no exception. the fall of Teotihuacan, ...
Teotihuacanen.wikipedia.org
The city may have lasted until sometime … its major monuments were sacked and systematically burned around 550 CE. Its collapse might be related to the extreme ...
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