At the end of October, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Mexico City with my husband, and our friends Katie and Mike, for the wedding of our dear friends, Mariana and Ramon. It was a magical experience, and none of us had ever been to Mexico before (except for the newly weds, who are in fact, from there). What a gorgeous place! We were there over Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos), and were able to do some touristing on our trip thanks to the guidance of our local friends, and learned so much about Mexican culture and tradition surrounding Day of the Dead, as well as some archaeological sites! Lets dive in.

Our first stop was the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Teotihuacan, a site that I’ve been learning about since I started my undergrad in archaeology in 2010 (ack). The area has seen human inhabitants for at least 400 BCE, and the famous temple centre was constructed between the 1st and 7th centuries CE. The Aztec Empire formed around the 15th century, and by the time they arrived at the ancient city, it had been abandoned by earlier cultures for over 500 years.

On the tour we went on, we were shown some craft shops and how the local people utilized all parts of the maguey plant, and then we were let loose on the Avenue of the Dead! We were able to visit the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun, so named by the Aztecs because they were painted white and red, but their original names have been lost to time. The main avenue between the two massive pyramids is the Avenue of the Dead, which was named that by the Aztecs as they thought the smaller pyramids along the sides of the road were burial places. In fact, they were small platforms for minor temples and elite residences for the city’s higher-ups. It was a magical place to visit, and we’ll have to go back at some place because we didn’t actually make it all the way down the 2km road to the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent deity!

We were also able to visit the Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Museum of Anthropology), which was obviously very exciting for a couple of archaeologists! Our friends took us over, they hadn’t been since grade school, and we spent the morning seeing a tiny fraction of the museum at top speed…and we were still there for nearly 3 hrs! Absolutely fantastic. There were a lot of artifacts from various burial excavations from different Meosamerican cultural groups, including a reconstruction of the famous burial of the great Maya King Pakal (Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal), and the stunning jade burial costume he was laid to rest in. The highlight for me was definitely seeing the Aztec Sun Stone in real life. It was like meeting a celebrity, that I spent all of 2012 explaining to people!

In the first photo in the post, you’ll see rows of stone skulls! That is a reconstructed tzompantli, or a skull rack! In the National Anthropology Museum we saw multiple skulls that had been put onto a txompantli, with a large hole on either side of the cranium for the rod to go through in order to have them suspended. They were used to show off those killed in a battle from the other side, and must have been a particularly horrific sight! I really like the stone ones though, they were found near temples, and there are at least two examples from the Templo Mayor in the centre of Mexico City, with the image above being one of them.

Of course, being in Mexico for Day of the Dead festivities was such a special experience. I’ve never seen so many people in one place! Mexico City has nearly the population of Canada, so going downtown during the holiday was a little overwhelming for me, but so cool at the same time. We went to the Zocalo, the huge public square in front of the government building where the President lives (I believe?), to see the displays set up there. Our friend Ramon told us that last year there were ofrenda from each state of the country, and this year there were less displays, but some of them were huge! You can see the centaur skeleton revolutionary in the photos above, as well as an entire train decorated with skeletons and marigolds. It was amazing, and there were so many people dressed up in spooky and colour costumes, their faces painted to look like skulls and flowers and ribbons in their hair.

We saw ofrenda (offerings) at many of the historic sites we visited throughout the trip as well, including the above photo on the right of the ofrenda around a central courtyard well, in the 16th-century house where Hernan Cortex lived (boo). It was poetic to see the house reclaimed for Mexican cultural traditions!

That same day, November 1st, is the day when the spirits of children and infants return. We visited a smaller cemetery, Panteón Xoco in Coyoacan, to take a look at some of the decorations, and saw families coming out to clean the gravestones of their relatives, pray by them, and decorate them for the holiday. Some had flowers, and some had elaborate decorations with flags, streamers, photos, and mini altars of food and drinks. There were even some with more ‘halloween’ decorations mixed in, little ghosts and bats, which was very interesting to see! There were several musical groups walking around as well, a mariachi band and two men with a huge marimba. Mariana told us that families will hire them to play a song for their relative, and the different types of bands were from northern or southern Mexico, so you could have music from where your family originated. It was really special to see, and I’m so glad we were able to visit and be part of the celebrations in some small way.

There were some children trick-or-treating on Oct 31st, but we saw even more people, adults and children, in costume on November 1st! It was such an amazing experience to visit Mexico City, to celebrate our friends’ wedding with them, and to experience a country and culture so different than what we know in Newfoundland and the rest of Canada. I really cannot wait to go back!