Teotihuacan: A World City in Ancient Mexico
Teotihuacan stood out in Classic-period Mesoamerica for its size, complexity and influence in distant areas. Teotihuacan traded and interacted with all corners of Mesoamerica, and the city held great prestige for the distant Maya kings. This talk will explore the art and archaeology of this ancient “world city” and will focus on recent archaeological research that is transforming our views of the city. This talk is intended to provide background for the current exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum, "Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire," a major traveling exhibition which will be on display in the Steele Gallery from Oct. 6, 2018, to Jan. 27, 2019.
Teotihuacan was the first, largest and most influential metropolis on the American continent. In its heyday between 100 B.C. and A.D. 650, the city encompassed an area of 15 square kilometers with a population of around 140,000. Who inhabited Teotihuacan, its original name and why it was abandoned are still unknowns. When the Aztecs came into the Valley of Mexico from the north in the first half of the 14th century, they discovered its ruins and named it Teotihuacan, the place where the gods were born, and then used it as the setting for their own creation myth.
About the Speaker
Michael Smith has been a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change since 2005 and became director of the ASU Teotihuacan Research Laboratory in 2015. He has directed numerous fieldwork projects at Aztec sites in central Mexico, pioneering the excavation of houses and the study of daily life. He has published six books and numerous scholarly articles on the Aztecs, including "The Aztecs" (Third edition, 2012), "Aztec City-State Capitals" (2008), "At Home with the Aztecs" (2016) and "Rethinking the Aztec Economy" (co-edited by Nichols, Berdan and Smith, 2017).