JOSH BERNSTEIN: Join me as
I explore the rise and fall of central Mexico's City
of the Gods, Teotihuacan, a metropolis of mega-proportions
that thrived for centuries, then mysteriously collapsed. Who built Teotihuacan,
and what happened to them? To find out, I float above the
ruins, play one of the world's oldest sports-- [grunts] --make razor-sharp tools
with volcanic glass, and learn about one man
whose bones become my window into the past. It's a search for answers to
one of history's great enigmas. We're digging for the truth,
and we're going to extremes to do it. Like butter. [dramatic music] These are the ruins
of Teotihuacan. At one point, this was a
thriving cultural center. Some believe this was
the first great city of the Western hemisphere. But after centuries
of dominance, it suddenly collapsed. Its inhabitants left us
no readable documents to explain why, just their
monuments, their art, and their graves. Hi. I'm Josh Bernstein, and I've
come here to central Mexico to explore the fate
of this city's people, and there's no better place
to start than with the ruins of the city itself. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Pyramids
dominate the city skyline. Today, three major ones
still stand, but in the past, as many as 200 smaller
pyramids, all just a few feet from each other,
dotted the city. Construction started in
the first century AD. At its height, around 450
AD, almost 150,000 people lived here in specially
designed apartment complexes. The city stretched out
for some 20 square miles, making it one of the ancient
world's largest cities. Then, sometime after
550 AD, the city was suddenly abandoned,
with no records left to explain what happened. Teotihuacan is located some 30
miles from modern-day Mexico City. It's easy to confuse
the Teotihuacanos with the Maya or the Aztecs. But the Maya, who lived
hundreds of miles away, were culturally and ethnically
distinct from Teotihuacan. The Aztecs, on the other
hand, may have descended from the Teotihuacanos. They were the ones who
discovered the silent ruins of the city some 700
years after its collapse. The superhuman
majesty of the ruins so profoundly impressed them
that they immortalized it in their legends. They named this monumental
city Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods. Today, it's the most-visited
archaeological site in Mexico, but is still one of
the least understood. Who built Teotihuacan? [chatter] I'm here at the onsite
museum with Dr. Mike Spence. He's conducted extensive
excavations at Teotihuacan. His specialty--
analyzing human remains. Mike introduces me to some
of the earliest inhabitants, or at least what's left of them. Clues like these have
given him insight into the city and its people. MIKE SPENCE: When
we found these, these revolutionized our
understanding of Teotihuacan. We had the idea that Teotihuacan
was primarily peaceful, but when we found these, we
realized that there was a more sinister aspect to the city. These particular individuals
are soldiers, we believe. Mike, how do you know that
these guys were soldiers? Well, you can see that they're
wearing these shell collars, and below the collars,
hanging from them, are a series of replicas
of human jawbones. JOSH BERNSTEIN: The ones here
are replicas because this is a museum, or they actually
were buried with replicas? No, they were
buried with replicas. Oh, really? Replicas meant to symbolize
or represent the various kills they made in
warfare with them. JOSH BERNSTEIN: So
each jaw represents one or a certain number
of people they've killed? MIKE SPENCE: I think so. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Judging from
the number of jaw-bone pendants, we can tell that they were
clearly elite soldiers. But a closer examination
of their remains could tell me a lot more about
them and their civilization. MIKE SPENCE: Big
room we're going to. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Mike takes me to
a storeroom, stacked from floor to ceiling with ancient
remains found at the site. MIKE SPENCE: We put
them all like that. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Is that it? MIKE SPENCE: Well, there's
more in other aisles. Got anything in a size 11? JOSH BERNSTEIN: We go on
a treasure hunt of sorts-- Here's another one. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --and stack
up on the bones of one man who lived here some 2,000-- Thank you. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --years ago. MIKE SPENCE: I'll
carry this one. OK. First-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: He's a
critical source of information. Yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Uh, this
is, like, a really scary-- MIKE SPENCE: Yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--Christmas present. MIKE SPENCE: [laughs] What'd you get me? MIKE SPENCE: You can catch-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: You know,
I might give him something. Grab that one. - [laughs]
- That's the femur. Femur. MIKE SPENCE: Go--
the other femur. Ah, I got--
MIKE SPENCE: There. --you. MIKE SPENCE: Now the tibia. Ah, very good. Here you go. JOSH BERNSTEIN: We
lay the bones out like you'd expect
him to be buried. But this wasn't the way his
bones were actually found. MIKE SPENCE: Put this out
like this a little bit-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Like that? MIKE SPENCE: --and then these
would come back in, sort of flexing the legs--
JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. MIKE SPENCE: --you know?
JOSH BERNSTEIN: Like this-- MIKE SPENCE: And--
JOSH BERNSTEIN: --and that? MIKE SPENCE: That's how the legs
were, close together and bent. Uh-huh. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Over there? His bent position tells us
that he was bound at the feet, and that's not all. OK. MIKE SPENCE: Now,
the wrists, they would have looked
like this, only they would have been underneath-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Rather than
behind the pelvis, right? --the pelvis, yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN: So was it
like-- was it like this, where they're
actually about like-- MIKE SPENCE: That's right, yeah. --that height? MIKE SPENCE: A little
higher, about the-- Here? MIKE SPENCE:
--small of the back. Yeah. In this case,
cause of death was-- I think he was
probably buried alive. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Buried
alive, along with 200 other healthy young
people, all sacrificed in a single, seemingly
gruesome event. Who were these victims? Fortunately, bones and
teeth store chemical records of oxygen isotopes. These act like
geographic markers, allowing us to find out
more about these people. This can tell us about
the person's childhood. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Nearly
all of the oxygen-- And then they tell us about-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: --that goes
into the formation of tooth and bone comes from
the water we drink. --that light?
JOSH BERNSTEIN: Thumb? MIKE SPENCE: Mm-hmm. JOSH BERNSTEIN: The oxygen
isotopes in bones change when a person moves from
one place to another. By analyzing these
isotopes, scientists can tell where the person
lived before he died. Can you show me how that's done? MIKE SPENCE: The bone
told us that he'd been living in
Teotihuacan for some years before he was sacrificed. JOSH BERNSTEIN: On the other
hand, oxygen isotopes in teeth don't change over time. MIKE SPENCE: You can
see that there's-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: They're
imprinted by water we drink in childhood--
MIKE SPENCE: --the calculus-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: --when
our teeth are forming. MIKE SPENCE: --on his
teeth, [inaudible].. JOSH BERNSTEIN: By comparing
these isotopes to those in the water in
various places, Mike can tell that this soldier--
- You know these? JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--wasn't born here. MIKE SPENCE: Yep. And the isotopes in the tooth-- Mm-hmm. --indicates that he spent
his childhood someplace else, not in Teotihuacan, not
even near Teotihuacan. How far away? MIKE SPENCE: Could've
been highland Guatemala, and that's a thousand
more kilometers away. It could have been Michoac n,
which is still 200 to 300 kilometers away. So his story, he was born
a long distance away, probably highland Guatemala,
arrived at some point in Teotihuacan, became a
member of the military, served in Teotihuacan for some
years, and then was sacrificed. JOSH BERNSTEIN: The other
victims have a similar story. Most of them were born elsewhere
and moved to Teotihuacan later in life. --part of a skull. JOSH BERNSTEIN: This suggests
that the rulers recruited people from diverse
regions of Mesoamerica, before sacrificing them
at the altar of the state. Isn't that a testament then
to the power of Teotihuacan, that they-- Yes. So this city had
quite an allure. Tells us that this was the
premier city of Mesoamerica. So that-- so Teotihuacan
was known far and wide-- It was. --for being special. It-- it was more than special. It wasn't just an ordinary city,
not even an extraordinary city. It was absolutely unique. It was the city where-- where time began, where the
present universe was formed, where the gods sacrificed
themselves to make men. [ominous music] JOSH BERNSTEIN: Risking their
lives on the battlefield wasn't all that was
asked of these soldiers. The state even demanded
the ultimate sacrifice at times of peace. Who ordered the death
of these people? How did they make this
state so attractive that immigrants from so far
away gave up their lives for it? I'm on a quest to find out who
built the City of the Gods. I've examined their
bones and found some pretty grisly
evidence of sacrifice. Now, I'm heading to see
their monuments to learn more about the city. The scale and magnificence
of Teotihuacan has long perplexed
archaeologists and scientists. The epic architecture
and organization suggest a strong
central authority. I've asked Linda Manzanilla, a
leading archaeologist in Teo, to tell me more about
the city's design. So do we know when people
first settled here? We have traces of villages
toward the southern part of the valley, around
400 before Christ. But the beginning of the
construction was around 80 AD. OK. And then we think that
there was an elite who planned the city as a model
of the Mesoamerican cosmos. JOSH BERNSTEIN: So this
city was always designed to be something significant. Yes. It seems as it was very
planned from the beginning. JOSH BERNSTEIN: I learn
that the visionary elite responsible for the early
stages of construction planned this city in such
detail that it's still one of the most impressive
examples of city planning in human history. To get a full grasp
of the city scale, Linda tells me I have to
get another point of view. All right, up, up, and away. OK. [owl hooting] JOSH BERNSTEIN: To get to the
ancient city of Teotihuacan from here, I have to fly
above the modern one. For the wind. [laughs] JOSH BERNSTEIN: Yeah. So the captain just told
me that if we stay low, the wind will take us
right over the pyramids. If we go high, it's going
to come back this way. Wind direction
shifts with altitude. [dog barking] Buenos d as. BALLOON CAPTAIN:
[speaking spanish] [laughs] Buenos d as. [dog barks] JOSH BERNSTEIN: Around 45,000
people live in the Teotihuacan municipality today. This is a bit voyeuristic. [dog barks] That's not even a
third the number who lived here 2,000 years ago. But the way in which this
modern city is laid out seems much more haphazard
than the ancient one. I was impressed by the size
of the city from the ground. But from up here, what I see is
a testament to the complexity and sophistication of the
people who designed and built this city. I've-- I've learned from
Linda that the architects of Teotihuacan had something
very precise in mind when they laid the city out. We've got the Avenue of the
Dead running north-south-- at this end, what we call
today the Pyramid of the Moon. We don't know what they
actually called it back then. And then over here on the east
side is the Pyramid of the Sun. Here we can see the avenue. You see, there's--
there's a line. Imagine a line going from the
Pyramid of the Sun due west, and that crosses the Avenue of
the Dead heading north-south. This quadrangle is how
archaeologists believe that this city was laid
out to a master plan. There's something more to this
grid plan than meets the eye. Apparently, every wall, every
street going north-south, is angled exactly the same. Bearing just shy of
True North, they're all angled at 15
degrees, 25 minutes East. The significance of
this orientation, it's still a mystery. It's really obvious from
up here that nothing-- BALLOON CAPTAIN: Hol . --in this site is
accidental or random. Everything was designed
with a purpose. JOSH BERNSTEIN: It's as if the
rulers wanted their pyramids to compete with the
surrounding mountains. The scale and size
of the pyramids were perhaps assurance that
the elite were so powerful that they can now rival
the gods themselves. What else do we know about these
rulers and their imperial city? I head back to rejoin
Linda Manzanilla, who wants to take me to a place
where most people aren't allowed to go. I would like you to wear this. OK. It's a-- it's a tunnel that
goes like a serpent towards the center of the pyramid,
and it's like the entrance to the underworld. Oh, fun. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Linda is taking me under the Pyramid of the Sun,
one of the biggest pyramids in the world. It rises as high as
a 20-story building and is filled in with about
3 million cubic tons of dirt and rubble. Ah, so this-- is this
the entrance here? No, no. That's a tunnel made
by the archaeologists. We should go inside this one. Uh-huh, OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN: The
tunnel we're entering is the only one made
by the ancients that's been found so far. Wow. JOSH BERNSTEIN: But
Linda thinks there may be other hidden tunnels. She wants to show me how
they're trying to find these and why they may be important. Here we go. JOSH BERNSTEIN: With
hardhats for protection, we descend into the tunnel. This should be fun. LINDA MANZANILLA:
This is real slick. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Linda believes
that this shaft was created by removing loose volcanic
rocks from the ground. The resulting serpentine
tunnel heads down for 300 feet. [grunts] Tight squeeze, humid,
and I can definitely feel the sensation
of going down, down into the center
of the pyramid. LINDA MANZANILLA: Channel.
- Mm-hmm. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Over the centuries, this tunnel has been
looted many times. All that's left of
the original interior are a few stone channels that
collected the water dripping from the ceiling. A hidden tunnel or a chamber
would be a real prize for the archaeologists. It could hold secret
treasures that offer clues to some of the city's riddles. It's getting hard to breathe. LINDA MANZANILLA: Hol . JOSH BERNSTEIN: Hello. To penetrate the hidden
secrets of the pyramid, scientists are using the
latest technological tool. Got something-- Yes. --huge and white
in the center of it. Oh, yes. Nice. This is a muon detector. It's an instrument-- Is it-- --that we are using to see
if-- if there are chambers that the archaeologists have not
seen inside the pyramid. A muon detector. Muon detector, yes. Wow. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
The muon detector is like a huge X-ray machine. It tracks muons,
subatomic particles. Just like dental X-rays
find cavities in teeth, the muon detector finds
cavities in the pyramid above. Most muons get absorbed
by the mass of the pyramid and don't reach the detector. But in spots where there
are halls or chambers, more muons pass
through to the machine where they're
recorded and mapped. As for the tunnel, this is
where it ends, in four chambers, which Linda says may
have represented the four quadrants of the city above. Who knows what clues may
have been in these chambers before it was looted? The muon detector will hopefully
help improve our knowledge, but it'll take at least another
year to measure the muons and work out if there
are any hidden chambers. So until then-- We'll just let
it do its thing. LINDA MANZANILLA: Mm-hmm. JOSH BERNSTEIN: In search of
clues about the inhabitants of the City of the
Gods, I found out about mass sacrifices and
possible hidden chambers under the state temple. OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN: From above,
I saw real evidence that this was a true metropolis. It was a city with a
multi-ethnic population, ruled by a mysterious elite. How did this city
become so grand? What was it that
propelled it to greatness? - You're going to need this--
- OK. - --and we have a flashlight.
- OK. - So let's go.
- All right. KEN HIRTH: I'll grab my shovel. JOSH BERNSTEIN: I'm here with
Ken Hirth, an anthropologist-- Sounds like fun. --and expert on Mesoamerican-- KEN HIRTH: Let's
go find the mine. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --commerce.
All right. He tells me that the
source of their power wasn't gold or diamonds. KEN HIRTH: Well, it
won't be dry in the mine. JOSH BERNSTEIN: It
was a substance called obsidian, volcanic glass. It's hard to imagine that
this was the great wealth that propelled the rise
of Teotihuacan. So Ken's gonna show me what
this material was all about and why this versatile stone
was the steel of Mesoamerica. KEN HIRTH: Yeah, be
careful going down. It's been raining a lot,
so it'll be slippery. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Ken's taking me
to an area where obsidian has been mined since the
days of Teotihuacan. KEN HIRTH: Now we're
going in, so be careful. It's been raining
a lot, and we don't want to have roof collapse.
OK? Yeah. That would not be good. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
This ancient mine was converted into
a modern shaft, and it's still mined today. Ken explains that the roof
is completely unsupported. Recent rains have soaked the
ground and weakened the walls. Just two days ago,
a tunnel collapsed, and that's not something we want
to happen while we're inside. Hopefully, the
miner's prayer candle will offer us some protection. The miners dig until they
find a vein of obsidian, and then they'll
follow the vein, taking out the nodules that
they can-- they can find. Be careful. It's really tight here. JOSH BERNSTEIN: I--
I like it that way. [grunts] Ken and I are now a long way in. KEN HIRTH: It collapsed
about a year ago. JOSH BERNSTEIN: We can no longer
see the mouth of the tunnel. Huh. But we've asked
some of the miners to wait near the entrance just
in case something happens. Josh, here's a good spot. JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. Oh, wow, look at that. KEN HIRTH: And you can-- you can see the
natural obsidian's em-- embedded in a-- a
soil-ash matrix. Wow, there's
obsidian everywhere. Look at this. So this was gold, but to
them, it was the beginning-- This was-- this was
the valuable stuff, yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Right. KEN HIRTH: So let's just see
if we can find a good quality piece, uh-huh. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Can we take
a piece from, like, up here? Would that be unwise? KEN HIRTH: We could, but
the roof might collapse. JOSH BERNSTEIN: [laughs] KEN HIRTH: We're
better off looking-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. Yeah, let's focus on the floor. Yeah, fo-- focus on the floor. JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. And what is it that
we're looking for? What makes one piece of
obsidian better than another? KEN HIRTH: Well, the
quality of the glass, no inclusions or veins-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Mm-hmm. --because that makes
it easier to flake. And that's what the
people at Teotihuacan would've been looking for. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Might be good. This one here? KEN HIRTH: That
one is very good. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Yeah? KEN HIRTH: Let's just test it
and see what quality glass it is. JOSH BERNSTEIN: All right. How do you test it? KEN HIRTH: I've got a little
hammerstone, if we just knock off a couple flakes. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Mm-hmm. KEN HIRTH: Oh boy, that
is good-quality glass. JOSH BERNSTEIN: All
right, that one's mine. KEN HIRTH: OK.
- [laughs] KEN HIRTH: This may be another
good quality piece here. JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. KEN HIRTH: Yeah, it looks
like pretty good glass. OK, so I've got one. KEN HIRTH: I'll take this one. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Ken says that
there's something special-- Back to the surface. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--about this obsidian, but we need to get a good
look at it in the light. Outside the mine--
KEN HIRTH: High quality-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: --there's a
debris area where miners have left their rejects. This is-- you'll see that,
what makes this obsidian unique-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: But
even the rejects carry the hallmark of
what makes this obsidian-- This is a very exciting spot.
--unique. KEN HIRTH: You'll see that
it has a green-golden sheen to it-- JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Wow, look at that. --which was important
to pre-Hispanic people. They thought green
stone was alive, and so it had a
symbolic importance. Whether it was a green
obsidian or jade, it was symbolically
important to them. This green quality
obsidian you won't find in any other obsidian
in Mexico or anywhere in the New World-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. --only occurs here. So if anyone had a
green obsidian blade, it came from here.
KEN HIRTH: It came from here. See, the--
- Right. --the old chaps. That's right. JOSH BERNSTEIN: One of the
secrets to Teotihuacan's success was their
control of this source of rare green obsidian. But the city was also surrounded
by two other huge obsidian deposits and several small ones. The raw materials and tools
found in various stages of production at Teo show
that every aspect of obsidian manufacture was
controlled by the city. KEN HIRTH: Well, let's just-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Ken and
I head to a nearby-- KEN HIRTH: We're gonna see--
JOSH BERNSTEIN: --camp site-- KEN HIRTH: --and try to-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: --where he
and other archaeologists do their fieldwork. Next time. He wants to show me
how to shape obsidian into the tools of the
era and demonstrate the unusual qualities
of this stone. What we want to shape
is something like this. It's called the macrocore, and
it's made by percussion flaking and has a flat platform that we
take our flakes off of, where we'd like to produce our
nice, parallel-sided ridges. This is what we want to create. And this is what
we're starting with? That's what we're
starting with. - OK.
- Right. Show me how. OK. [upbeat music] Hammerstone. Hammerstone and hands. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Tricky, tricky, tricky. KEN HIRTH: Yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Creating a
core is standard flintknapping procedure.
- Back, right here. JOSH BERNSTEIN: But
knapping obsidian-- KEN HIRTH: --where it's flat.
JOSH BERNSTEIN: --is tricky. OK, so now what? I just come in hard and
heavy right here, and-- [laughs] --and see if I can restore it? Probably not. JOSH BERNSTEIN: It
flakes off very easily. If you're not careful, huge
chunks would break off, and you'd be left with
a lot of useless bits. And I don't want that. Should I bring it back a
little bit right in there? Yeah. That's good.
- Good? That's a good one,
yeah-- just like that-- - Huh.
- --all the way around. To learn flintknapping, you
gotta break a lot of rock. KEN HIRTH: Once they have a
percussion core like this, they use these ridges
to start making blades. JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK. KEN HIRTH: This is a-- this is
a Teotihuacan finished core, and what you can see are all the
parallel ridges are the spots where blades came off-- looks like this. So-- so one of the things that
the Teotihuacano flintknappers were making were long, skinny
blades like this one here. It's-- Long, skinny blades. They would have basically-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: The
Teotihuacanos would have braced themselves between trees-- And then--
JOSH BERNSTEIN: --or stumps-- KEN HIRTH: This is a-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: --but Ken has
created this portable rig. We could make it
experimentally-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Holding
the core with his feet, he has to apply just the
right amount of pressure. It takes skill and precision-- KEN HIRTH: Steady. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--something that Ken has developed over many,
many hours of hard practice. Yeah. Wow.
- Good one. Nice. Oh, that's great. JOSH BERNSTEIN: This
core is a blade factory. You can flake off blade
after blade from it. KEN HIRTH: And you can see
where they came off the core. JOSH BERNSTEIN: And that's just
what the Teotihuacanos did. That's great. And we know that they
made these, right? Right.
Right. These replicate exactly what
archaeologists have found? KEN HIRTH: Exactly, yep. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Archaeologists have found Teotihuacan green obsidian
tools all over Mesoamerica in sites thousands
of miles away. This obsidian trade was
key in making Teotihuacan the economic center
of Mesoamerica. Traders and craftsmen carried
these cores to distant towns and flaked off blades on the
spot for their customers. The city not only controlled
the export of obsidian. It also controlled the human
skill it took to shape it, and that skill was vital. KEN HIRTH: Yeah, they
were a Stone Age society. They didn't have metal. They manufactured all their
cutting edge from obsidian, which is the sharpest
cutting edge, you know, that you
can manufacture, even sharper than
surgical stainless steel. Sharpest edge you can
manufacture even today? Even today. [grunts] That's so cool. I want to explain
what's going on here. Some of the local
miners have actually brought in a goat, which they're
gonna prepare for dinner. But I want to make a
point using obsidian. The reason why obsidian blades
were found all over Mesoamerica is because everyone had to eat,
and everyone needed a knife. Obsidian was the
most important tool when it came to processing. And this is what puts
the meat on the table. KEN HIRTH: They would use
the obsidian blades for-- for weaponry, and-- and
then, also they used it for ceremonial activities. They would let their own
blood to give it to the gods. And so a small lancelet, they
could pierce their tongue or their ears and draw blood,
and-- and then offer it as an offering to the gods. Blood was sacred. Wow. So this was practical,
ceremonial, and sacred. I want to let these guys come
in and take their goat back. Gracias. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Teotihuacan's control of this versatile substance made
them an economic powerhouse. Their sphere of
influence extended well beyond their borders. I'm trying to piece together
the story of Teotihuacan. I've seen a master-planned
metropolis and evidence of mass human sacrifice. Now I've discovered that a
unique Stone Age technology was the source of its power. Obsidian made Teotihuacan the
dominant culture in the region. But how did this concentration
of wealth and authority impact its citizens? To find out, we have to go to an
apartment complex on the site. Some 300 years after
Teo was established, city planners shifted the
emphasis from the construction of monumental architecture
to the construction of more than 2,000 residential
compounds in the city. I'm back with Mike
Spence, and he tells me that in its prime, around 450
AD, close to 150,000 people lived in Teotihuacan.
- A residence? MIKE SPENCE: That's a residence. People would have been eating
and sleeping and living in here. And I see they-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: To
accommodate them-- Same orientation-- JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--these apartments were designed and built on a
scale unprecedented in history. --a family at the time? This is absolutely unique. Mesoamerica hasn't seen
anything like this before, and this wasn't practiced
any place else in Mesoamerica at this time. Is there any way
to know if, like, if this was a major
switch for the living-- lifestyles of these people? I suspect the state had to
use a little bit of muscle to get people into these-- All right. --and you can see it
is sort of state design. There's commonalities in all
of them that suggests that. So here, this is--
this is a residence? That's a residence. JOSH BERNSTEIN: By forcefully
relocating the people into government housing, the
ruling elite tighten their grip on daily life. But the social engineering
didn't stop there. Political indoctrination
was incorporated into the decor of every home. And that is my next clue. Teotihuacan may have
had a written language, but scholars haven't been
able to decipher it yet. So another way we can
learn about this society is by studying the art and
artifacts they've left behind. I'm now heading to
an apartment complex here on the site to
meet an art historian, and I'm hoping she can tell me
more about this civilization. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Her
name is Kim Goldsmith. So this is-- oh, look at this.
So this-- She's been studying the
mural art in Teotihuacan for more than 15 years. This is one of the better-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: She says that
the artwork is as well planned as the architecture of the city. KIM GOLDSMITH: It should get-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: We stop at
a recurring icon, an image of a priest. KIM GOLDSMITH: Aren't
these fabulous? That's ama-- so what can
these tell us about the people of Teotihuacan? Well, we could learn a
lot more if we had more. We probably have about 1.1% of
their mural artwork remaining. But, in general, the
mural panes of Teotihuacan are really representing
state symbolism as trying to be really
a state propaganda. Even in your own house, on
the inside of your house, you're not allowed
to pick what you're going to put on your walls. You are going to have
a state-mandated theme inside your house. So it's visually mesmerizing
everybody into saying, we are the greatest.
We're the best. Go, team.
- Really? Mm-hmm. So there's some sort
of programming going on through the murals.
KIM GOLDSMITH: Yes, definitely. And it works. It works very, very well. JOSH BERNSTEIN: The mural art
was like a political campaign for the elite. Archaeologists believe
these ornate drawings of high priests,
ritual, and sacrifice were painted on the walls in
every single home in the city, burning their message into
the minds and the hearts of their people. It's as if the murals were used
to impose the will of the state on every individual. Was this the climate in which
the sacrificed soldiers lived-- a climate where they
might have accepted that they'd one day give
their lives up for the state? Kim takes me around the
corner to see another mural. She thinks this room
might have been a school. KIM GOLDSMITH: They're
really beautiful. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
This is definitely different than the
one we saw down there. It's very different
because this is more of a slice of everyday life. These are men playing all
different kinds of games, and I'm sure they must
have played during-- during the time
period of the city. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Looks like
here they're playing bocce or marbles or something--
KIM GOLDSMITH: Yeah, some kind-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: --using--
KIM GOLDSMITH: --of a ball game. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--using balls, yeah. KIM GOLDSMITH: And
you have a fellow getting a piggyback ride-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK, yeah. KIM GOLDSMITH:
--right here, and-- Oh, there's another one--
KIM GOLDSMITH: --playing. - --over there.
- This is very interesting. These two fellows are
playing, and here's the ball. It looks like they're playing
using their hips without being able to touch it
with their hands. It looks like they're
going to a lot of trouble to avoid touching it, in fact. Maybe it has even a
continuance in modern times today, some relative of it. OK, there is a game where they
play it in a court like this? Some people just play a
game like it, very much so. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Everything
in the City of the Gods had a religious
or ritual aspect. If the rest of this
culture is any indication, the game probably
wasn't child's play. Gracias. OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN: To find out
if this game can offer me more insight into this
imperial culture, I traveled to Western Mexico,
where the game is still being played. Here, I meet Ricardo
Urquijo, a local who knows a lot about the
game called hip ulama. Gracias. So this is the game, huh? Yeah, this is ulama. They're using a dusty,
which is the field ground. Mm-hmm. And here you have this line,
which is right in the middle, and it's called an [spanish]. When they cannot respond, then
that's a point for this team. JOSH BERNSTEIN: It's
a bit like volleyball. Each team tries to hit the
ball back to the other side-- Ha! JOSH BERNSTEIN: --
except, of course, here, they're using their hips
instead of their hands. And how many
points until you win? Eight. JOSH BERNSTEIN: The game
has a history dating back before the Aztecs, and even
before the Teotihuacanos, stretching back
some 4,000 years. Can-- is it OK
if I give it a try? RICARDO URQUIJO: Sure.
- Yeah? RICARDO URQUIJO:
[speaking spanish] JOSH BERNSTEIN: OK?
MAN 1: OK, yeah. RICARDO URQUIJO: Yeah.
MAN 1: There you go. RICARDO URQUIJO: Sure. Oh, you guys have
your shoes off. Bring it on! That's to me? [grunts] MAN 2: Oh, bad hit. Ow. MAN 3: That hit. [laughs] MAN 4: OK. Come on. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Learning to play ulama is all about learning
to flick your hips-- MAN 1: Got ya, got ya. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --that, and
getting hit by an 8-pound ball. That-- I'll tell you one
thing-- when the ball hits you, you can feel it.
It's heavy. MAN 3: [groans] [laughs] And it's just, like, a
massive amount of rubber. I'm going to have a-- a nice bruise to play.
MAN 3: Out. But it's fun. MAN 1: [speaking spanish] JOSH BERNSTEIN: This is
seemingly playful stuff, an innocent ball game,
but it turns out, it wasn't innocent at all. This game between
competing teams may have symbolized the battle
between the gods in the sky and the lords of the underworld. The ball itself may
have symbolized the sun. The rulers of Teotihuacan
took a physical game and turned it into a
supernatural ritual. Once again, the heavy
hand of the state made its mark on daily life. So Ricardo, any sense of
how the rules or the game has changed over the
last 2,000 years? They have changed a lot
because in Teotihuacan days, the winner was
sacrificed to the gods. MAN 1: [grunts] RICARDO URQUIJO: To have
fertility, good crops, rain-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: So you'd-- you'd
want to die through this game. Yes, right. Because to me, as someone
who's playing now, like, I would think the
loser would die. - [laughs]
- You know? Right. It's like, if we
beat you, you die. You know? But you're saying that actually
it was the honor of the winning team--
- Right. --to be sacrificed in one
of the highest ways possible. Yes, of course. OK, did we win or lose? I don't know. [laughs] Well-- I hope I lost. Ah-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: I'm glad
to be going back unharmed-- well, mostly. But I've learned something. In Teotihuacan, the
dominance of the state was so complete that,
for centuries, people were asked to give
up their lives for it in war and in peace. I'm trying to understand the
mysterious city of Teotihuacan. I've crawled into volcanic glass
mines, examined human bones, and played one of the
world's oldest sports. Once, people gave up their lives
for this all-powerful state, but no city can last forever. It's time to
explore how it fell. A vital clue is found in
an unlikely substance-- lime. When originally
constructed, each pyramid was plastered with lime, which
was then beautifully painted by artists. Elizabeth Solleiro,
a scientist who's studying the impact Teotihuacan
had on its environment, is exploring a theory that's
becoming increasingly popular. OK, right here. This is an oven where the
Teotihuacans produced lime, lime to plaster the pyramids. So how do you make lime? Does it need a lot of wood? They needed a lot of, yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Lime is
really just burnt and powdered limestone mixed with water. And to make lime
from scratch, I'd have to keep this kiln burning
at 800 degrees for at least eight hours. That would take a lot of wood. Back in the day, the city was
surrounded by thick forests. ELIZABETH SOLLEIRO: When
the Teotihuacans started to live here, they-- all the mountain was plenty of-- of pines. Like, if we were here 2,000
years ago, there were trees here--
ELIZABETH SOLLEIRO: Mm-hmm. --pine trees? ELIZABETH SOLLEIRO: Mm-hmm. Wow. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Elizabeth tells me that to get a sense of how
much lime was used by the city, I'll have to make some
lime mortar myself. ELIZABETH SOLLEIRO: Mm-hmm. OK, it-- that's all. JOSH BERNSTEIN: Wow, it feels-- that's hot. Good, yeah, because the
reaction is very strong and produce heat. A lot of heat--
a lot of heat. ELIZABETH SOLLEIRO: Yeah. That's impressive. JOSH BERNSTEIN: In order
to maintain their city-- Should I add--
should I add in water? ELIZABETH SOLLEIRO: Yeah. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--the Teotihuacanos plastered and replastered
the walls again and again. To do this, they would
have probably kept kilns burning around the clock. It's been estimated that
they used roughly 30,000 tons of wood each year to
build and maintain the plaster on the city. That's about 3,000 acres of
forest cut down and burnt each year over centuries. It's as if they were
smearing their forests all over their walls. The forests never
recovered from this abuse. Neither did the city. The resulting soil erosion
slashed farm productivity, setting the stage for crisis. Scientists believe that during
the final days of Teotihuacan, pine forests, like this one,
were almost completely wiped out. At the same time, the city
began to spiral out of control. Was environmental
degradation caused by humans the real reason the City
of the Gods collapsed? What was the final straw? JOSH BERNSTEIN: Once again, the
answers may lie in the graves. Burial space here. OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Mike is taking me to a grave in one of
the apartment complexes. See? Wasn't much space around-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Apparently,
Teotihuacanos frequently buried their relatives--
MIKE SPENCE: --you need a grave. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --right
in their own courtyard. This here is full?
MIKE SPENCE: Mm-hmm. Oh, wow.
Huh. Yeah, it's to be-- it's been excavated by the
archaeologists, and then they-- - They resealed it?
- --resealed it. OK. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
I've already seen the graves of elite soldiers
sacrificed with riches to the gods. Now Mike wants to show me
what archaeologists found in the graves of
average citizens. MIKE SPENCE: So this
is the kind of material that was found in
graves, and you can see it's a
sort of reflection of the wealth of Teotihuacan. You've got green stone. You've got marine shell. You've got coral-- all of this
coming in from some distance away. JOSH BERNSTEIN: These may not
look like much to you and me, but these objects were treasured
by the people of Teotihuacan, the kind of things you'd
bury with a loved one. For centuries,
people knew they'd take some of these things
with them to their graves, but all that changed as
the forests got depleted. Wow, so these types of items
were found in graves like that? Yes, uh-huh. Throughout Teotihuacan? Well, not entirely. They were in the earlier
years of Teotihuacan. This wealth seemed
to flow fairly freely throughout the city. Some people had less than
others, but everybody had some. And then that changed? In the later years, yes. That kind of material
would be found only in the graves of
the richer people toward the center of the city. So we're seeing a polarization
of the wealth classes? There's a growing gap between
the upper class and the lower classes. So it sounds like something
is changing internally at Teotihuacan. Something's going drastically
wrong in the last century or so. What environmental
factors could create that-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: Once again, it's
the teeth that tell the story. Well, we examined
the teeth, and we were able to see these
lines of growth interruption in their teeth. And those increased late in
the apartment-compound history, so that people were apparently
suffering a lot of episodes of growth interruption, which
means episodes of infection, malnutrition, perhaps trauma. They're saying that it's
something just in rural [inaudible]. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
Teotihuacan, it seems, had gotten too big
to sustain itself. With the forests
depleted, the farmlands insufficient to sustain
the dense urban population, the city was literally crumbling
under its own pressure. But did people just abandon
it and migrate elsewhere? Most treacherous-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: I head
back to Linda Manzanilla to put the final
pieces together. She has startling new evidence
that the city was deliberately burned. On the top, we
have excavated them, and we see the burning of
the city around 550 AD. JOSH BERNSTEIN: These mounds
are the remains of Teotihuacan's administrative center, still in
the early stages of excavation. So this is what it looks like
before archaeologists clean-- LINDA MANZANILLA: Correct. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --it all up? LINDA MANZANILLA: Right. This is how the
mounds are formed-- JOSH BERNSTEIN:
These tarps are here to protect some of
the most important archaeological evidence
yet discovered at Teo. For example, you see here,
the stucco floors originally were white, and you have-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: And black-- --the ceiling collapsing,
and the beams are burning and falling. JOSH BERNSTEIN: That's what
this says to an archaeologist? LINDA MANZANILLA: Yes. JOSH BERNSTEIN: You can
tell by looking at this. Because, to me, I can see
the discolorations here-- LINDA MANZANILLA: Yes. JOSH BERNSTEIN:
--but you're saying that 1,500 years ago, the
ceiling collapsed, on fire, and it fell here? Well, I knew you
were going to ask that, and I brought the sample of
the carbonized wood of the-- JOSH BERNSTEIN: When excavations
began here in the early '90s-- LINDA MANZANILLA:
That post here-- Oh, right here.
LINDA MANZANILLA: --here is one. JOSH BERNSTEIN: --Linda's
team found the charred remains of massive roof beams
littering the floor, as if from a great fire. A fire that marked the
end of a civilization. Carbonized wood is
fragile, so Linda has brought only this tiny sample. The rest has been
removed and carefully tested to determine
the date of the fire. LINDA MANZANILLA: So we have
the dates of the construction of the white part, and
then the dates of the fall with the black part. Why does this fire say
internal revolt and not just wildfire came through
and burned everything? Because the fire
was selective, particularly in the temples
and the places where the rulers and the decision-making
was made. Oh. So a wildfire, if it
did come in and burn, would've burned everything in--
- Everything-- - --indiscriminately.
- --on the site. Right. JOSH BERNSTEIN: For centuries,
Teotihuacan's rulers dominated every aspect
of life, even demanding the ultimate sacrifice. In return, they promised to
bless and protect the people. When these promises
fell flat, it seems that people exacted
the perfect revenge on their masters
and their monuments. It was a no-confidence vote on
the existing power structure carried out on an
unsurpassed scale. Overnight, this
magnificent metropolis that dominated the
region for centuries was reduced to a shadow
of its former self, never to rise again. A civilization that thrived
on order collapsed in chaos. [dramatic music] [theme music]
