Teotihuacan, Mexico
AA-2026-45316F
On the image
Two women in sensible dark coats stand at the edge of the Pyramid of the Sun, looking north across the Avenue of the Dead at the smaller Pyramid of the Moon, doing the thing well-travelled people did in the 1960s when a Mexican vacation meant a rental car, a guidebook, and a pilgrimage to ruins nobody in their hometown had heard of yet.
One has her hands planted on her hips in the universal posture of someone privately deciding whether the climb back down will be worse than the climb up already was. The other clutches a bag and a rolled item, the standard tourist ballast of the era, before daypacks existed to make the job easier. Below them the excavated plazas sit tidy and grass-mowed, restoration having already smoothed a thousand years of collapse into something a person in low heels could safely stand on.
Neither woman seems aware that the volcanic stone under her own feet is itself a monument, the Pyramid of the Sun, third largest pyramid on earth by base area, put there so a civilization could watch the sky and be watched back. They came for the view. The view came with a bit more history attached than the postcard mentioned.
The historian's note
Teotihuacan, roughly thirty miles northeast of Mexico City, was one of the largest cities in the pre-Columbian Americas, flourishing between approximately 100 BCE and 550 CE with a population estimated at over 100,000 at its peak. The identity of its builders remains debated, as the civilization predated the Aztecs, who found the city already abandoned and named its structures, including the Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon seen here, centuries after they were built.
Systematic excavation and restoration of the site began in the early twentieth century and continued through mid-century, transforming a partially buried ruin into an accessible archaeological park. By the 1960s the site was an established stop for international tourism to Mexico, reachable by road from the capital and increasingly promoted in guidebooks and travel itineraries of the period.
The Avenue of the Dead, the ceremonial causeway visible running towards the Pyramid of the Moon, connects the site's major structures and remains the organising axis of the archaeological zone. Teotihuacan was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
Subjects & keywords — each links to a search
Visually related — by likeness
Two Tourists Survey the Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan, 1960s. 1960–1969. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-45316F. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-tourists-survey-the-pyramid-of-the-moon-teotihuacan-1960s.
@misc{aaAA202645316F,
title = {Two Tourists Survey the Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan, 1960s},
year = {1960–1969},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-45316F},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-tourists-survey-the-pyramid-of-the-moon-teotihuacan-1960s}
}TY - ART TI - Two Tourists Survey the Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan, 1960s PY - 1960–1969 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-45316F UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-tourists-survey-the-pyramid-of-the-moon-teotihuacan-1960s ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.