The story
Between about 900 and 1150 CE, Tula, in the modern state of Hidalgo north of Mexico City, was the leading city of central Mexico and capital of the people later called the Toltecs. At its height it may have housed tens of thousands of people. Its ceremonial center, Tula Grande, included a pyramid crowned by colossal stone columns in the shape of warriors, the Atlantean figures, about 4.6 meters tall, as well as colonnaded halls, ballcourts and friezes of jaguars, eagles and feathered serpents.
Tula rose in the vacuum left by the fall of Teotihuacan, central Mexico's earlier great city, around 550, and declined around 1150 to 1200 amid fire and abandonment. Later Aztec tradition turned the Toltecs into a legend: master artisans and the origin of civilization, ruled by the priest-king Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, who was exiled and promised to return. The Aztec rulers claimed Toltec descent to legitimize their power, and the word toltecatl came to mean a skilled artist in Nahuatl. Historians separate these legends from the archaeology of the real city.
Why it mattered
- Aztec rulers built their claim to legitimacy on supposed Toltec ancestry.
- Tula's art and architecture closely parallel Chichen Itza's, a key clue to long-distance ties in Mesoamerica.
- The Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl legend became central to later Aztec and colonial-era narratives.
Sources
- Tula Encyclopedia.com
- Tula Grande and the Toltec (Kristan-Graham) Ancient Americas
Community notes
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