A team of researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico recently announced the discovery of a 2,500-year-old structure that they believe functioned as a solar observatory.
The structure is part of the pre-Hispanic Teteles de Ávila Castillo archaeological site in Sierra Norte de Puebla and has been under excavation by INAH since 2015. Alberto Diez Barroso Repizo, Teteles’s archaeological project director, told the Art Newspaper that Teteles “flourished during the Middle Preclassic period (900BC-600BC) but declined around AD100, possibly because nearby Cantona expanded.” Diez points to the discovery of green obsidian beads as an indication that Teteles, which is along a trade route, was connected to the much larger Mesoamerican city Teotihuacan, since that city controlled a quarry where the obsidian originated.
The discovery indicates that Teteles’s architects and inhabitants had a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy: the observatory was designed to track the beginning of the Mesoamerican calendar in February and the harvest in October, according to a statement from INAH. One of the project’s researchers noted that the eastern base of the complex “constitutes a solar calendar,” based on observations of the trajectory of the sun aligning with the front of the structure during the beginning of equinoxes and solstices.
Diez told TAN that INAH plans to open the site, and eventually a museum, to the public.
Claudia Curiel de Icaza, Mexico’s Secretary of Culture, noted that the discovery expands the country’s understanding of its own history. “The architecture of Teteles de Ávila Castillo tells us about societies that developed astronomical knowledge and incorporated it into the organization of their ceremonial spaces,” she said.
