Calixtlahuaca
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Calixtlahuaca is a Postclassic period Mesoamerican archaeological site, located near the present-day city of Toluca in the State of Mexico. Known originally as "Matlatzinco", this urban Aztec settlement was a powerful capital whose kings controlled a large territory in the Toluca Valley.
Archaeologist José García Payón excavated the monumental architecture at Calixtlahuaca in the 1930s and restored a number of temples and other buildings. Most notable are Structure 3, a circular temple dedicated to the Aztec wind god Ehecatl, and Structure 17, a large royal “palace”. The architecture and stone sculpture at the site is similar to that of other Middle to Late Postclassic period (AD 1100-1520) Aztec sites in central Mexico.
In 2002 Dr. Michael E. Smith initiated a new research project at Calixtlahuaca. This project was sponsored by Arizona State University and the National Science Foundation, and fieldwork began in 2006 with a full-coverage intensive survey of the site. In 2007 a series of houses and terraces were excavated, revealing the form of life of the inhabitants of Calixtlahuaca for the first time.
Calixtlahuaca is also known for a the discovery of a ceramic dubbed the "Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head" uncovered during García Payón's excavations in the 1930s and purported to be from Ancient Rome. Although this artifact has a provenance similar to other items excavated at that time – and radioluminescence testing and stylistic analysis seem to support the antiquity of the artifact[1] – the implications of this out-of-place artifact compel mainstream Mesoamerican scholars to remain sceptical.[2]
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- Hristov, Romeo H. & Genovés T., Santiago (1999), “Mesoamerica evidence of pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts”, Ancient Mesoamerica 10: 207–213
- Smith, Michael E. (2003) Postclassic Urbanism at Calixtlahuaca: Reconstructing the Unpublished Excavations of José García Payón.
- Smith, Michael E. (2005) "The "Roman Figurine" Supposedly Excavated at Calixtlahuaca, accessed January 2008.
- Smith, Michael E., Juliana Novic, Peter C. Kroefges, and Angela Huster (2007) "A New Map of the Aztec-Period City of Calixtlahuaca in Central Mexico. Antiquity 81:'Project Gallery'"
- Smith, Michael E., Jennifer Wharton, and Melissa McCarron (2003) "Las ofrendas de Calixtlahuaca" in Expresión Antropológica 19:35-53.
