2021.TheendofXochicalco.

INDEX
HUMAN HERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE. CONTEMPORARY DECLINATIONS

VOL.8, N.1, 2021
Olimpia Niglio, editor

Noriko Inoue, César Augusto Velandia Silva, co-editors
EDITORIAL
Olimpia Niglio with Noriko Inoue and César Augusto Velandia Silva 5
THE END OF XOCHICALCO, A RITUAL DESTRUCTION?

Arnold Lebeuf 9
ANCIENT EGYPT, SPANISH CROWN, AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

EGYPTIANIZING HALLS AND GARDENS IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SPAIN
Elisabeth Garcia Marrasé 27
THE DESERT AS AN IDEA. A DECOLONIAL READING

OF ARGENTINE TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT
Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral 39
CONSTRAINTS AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES ON MEXICO’ S LANDSCAPE CULTURE

Martín M. Checa-Artasu 49
KEYS TO GOOD DESIGN FOR A HUMANE, INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE CITY

GUANAJUATO’S CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Fabiola Colmenero Fonseca, Alejandro Guzmán Ramírez 61
THE ENCINO’S GARDEN: CORE OF COMMUNITY LIFE OF A TRADITIONAL

NEIGHBORHOOD IN AGUASCALIENTES
J. Jesús López García 73
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MINING LANDSCAPE,

IN THE CITY OF GUANAJUATO, MEXICO
Elvia Guadalupe Ayala Macías, Velia Yolanda Ordaz Zubia 85
THE QUALITY OF FRAGILITY

Silvia Aloisio, Francesco Tosetto 95
INDEX
LANDSCAPE IS CULTURAL BY NATURE

WHY INSIST ON THE BINOMIAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPES?
Lucas Períes 103
THE LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY. SCENES OF THE COMMEMORATION

OF THE VIOLENT EVENTS OF THE LAST CENTURY
Angelique Trachana, Ioana-Georgiana Şerbănoiu 115
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE LANDSCAPE

Damiano Iacobone 133
PHOTO CAPTIONS 139
International Partner
HUMANHERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
CONTEMPORARY DECLINATIONS
Vol. 1
DOI 10.4399/97888255398681
EDITORIAL
HUMAN HERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
OLIMPIA NIGLIO
WITH
NORIKO INOUE AND CÉSAR AUGUSTO VELANDIA SILVA
Vision without Action is Empty. Action without Vision is Blind.

Let the Vision be a force behind Action, and Action the energy
behind Vision. This is the way to understand the
interconnectedness between human beings and Mother Earth.
Rana P. B. Singh, 2020
TOWARDS A NEW CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM
[…] Human beings too are creatures of this world, enjoying a right to life and happiness, and endowed
with unique dignity. So, we cannot fail to consider the effects on people’s lives of environmental
deterioration, current models of development and the throwaway culture.
[…] The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately
combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation. In
fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet:
“Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the
environment are suffered by the poorest”.
[…] Finally, we need to acknowledge that different approaches and lines of thought have emerged
regarding this situation and its possible solutions. At one extreme, we find those who doggedly uphold
the myth of progress and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application
of new technology and without any need for ethical considerations or deep change. At the other extreme
are those who view men and women and all their interventions as no more than a threat, jeopardizing the
global ecosystem, and consequently the presence of human beings on the planet should be reduced and all
forms of intervention prohibited. Viable future scenarios will have to be generated between these
extremes, since there is no one path to a solution. This makes a variety of proposals possible, all capable of
entering into dialogue with a view to developing comprehensive solutions.
In 2015, with these words the Holy Father Francis in “Laudato sì” opened an important reflection about the
significance of life on the world but few people have heard the cry of the earth. […] Men and women have
constantly intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities
offered by the things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand.
Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them
while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us. Human beings and material objects no longer
extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational.
This conflict is also in the interpretation of the relationship between man and nature that we find in the
different cultures and which was accentuated especially in the twentieth century, with the rapid technological
development that allowed a part of humanity to reach levels of well-being also with the consequent
impoverishment of other territories.
However, the different interpretations of the relationship between man and nature allow us to enhance a new
“cultural ecosystem” that the capitalist vision of the world has stifled with serious humanitarian consequences.
Analyzing the meaning of human heritage and the role of the cultural landscape allows us to build the
6 OLIMPIA NIGLIO, NORIKO INOUE, CÉSAR AUGUSTO VELANDIA SILVA
foundations for a new humanistic vision of reality and where transdisciplinarity is a fundamental key to opening
our minds beyond cartesian boundaries.
To question the relationship between human heritage and the cultural landscape is to call into question
certainties and to pursue doubts and insecurities, because only in this way can we hope for the construction of a
better world.
In the 9th Letter (1925), Lettere dal Lago di Como, Romano Guardini, theologian, writes:
[…] è ancora possibile, in mezzo a tutto ciò che accade, un tipo di vita che sia completamente imperniato
sulla natura dell’uomo e sull’opera dell’uomo?
Il vecchio mondo sta crollando, e intendo la parola «mondo» nella sua più ampia accezione e cioè
comprendendo in essa le opere, le istituzioni, le organizzazioni e le attitudini di vita.
[…] Il problema non sarà risolto con un tornare indietro, né con un capovolgimento o con un differimento;
e neppure con un semplice cambiamento o miglioramento. Si avrà la soluzione soltanto andandola a
cercare molto in profondità.
Dev’essere possibile inoltrarsi nella via della presa di coscienza, sino a giungere alla mèta, per moto
interiore e non per pressioni o limitazioni esteriori. E deve essere possibile, nello stesso tempo, conseguire
una nuova sicurezza interiore, che non sia legata a quanto va consumato ed arso in quella presa di
coscienza; un atteggiamento di rispetto che sostenga questo nuovo sapere; una ingenuità nuova nella
coscienza; una capacità di credere, anche nella scepsi.
Deve essere possibile lasciar cadere le illusioni e veder tracciati rigorosamente i limiti della nostra
esistenza, ma acquisire, nel contempo, una nuova infinità avente la sua origine nello spirito1.
To this inner research, we have dedicated the topic of this monographic issue of EdA Esempi di Architettura
published in two volumes and which has allowed us to compare ideas and proposals of researchers from
different cultures and geographical origins: from America, Europe, and Asia.
This dialogue was also supported by co-editors Noriko Inoue, from Japan, and César Augusto Velandia Silvia,
from Colombia whose opposites harmoniously met in a unified vision of the relationship between man and
nature.
We wish a great reading to rediscover our fundamental inner values to build a better world.
RESONATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Let me first clarify that what I am writing here is a personal note rather than a scholarly comment, and thus
may be unworthy of a contribution from an academic journal editor. Nonetheless, since I was encouraged to write
something about a relationship between people and landscapes, I’d like to think back on the landscapes that have
been inside me.
My involvement in cultural landscapes in Italy starts with my visit to Ferrara. To the east of that jewel-like city
extends wetland scenery, which I later came to know had been depicted in movies by Michelangelo Antonioni.
At that time, I went to Italy to learn its landscape policy and intended to choose case studies in beautiful rural
areas in Toscana as my research topic. Meanwhile, the marshland I saw in Ferrara reminded me of a documentary
film entitled “The Flow of a River, the Sound of a Violin (1981)”2, which I once saw in Japan. Its main theme is the
violin, and the story unfolds against the backdrop of the basin of the Po River. The relationship between the river
and people’s lives was also depicted in this film. Although I cannot remember any exact scenes in the film, the
image of the Po River valley is still vivid in my memory. That image and the memory of watching the Po River in
the documentary film also made me recall my childhood days, when I would spend time with my father
watching many Italian movies. Those movies, which were considered by my father’s generation to be works by
master directors of neorealism, greatly impressed me. I was especially enchanted with the landscapes (images)
and the conversations, which sounded to me just like tones without any meaning. I think that the landscape of the
Po River, combined with the image of Italy in movies, has remained inside me as a sort of sediment, serving as
the seed of my eventual relationship with Italy. Indeed, after that, I began frequently coming and going between
Italy and Japan and was sometimes surprised to find myself in the middle of the marsh landscapes. I spent many
hours in Ferrara, waiting at a railroad station for a train, which would suddenly appear out of the fog; looking
vacantly at the field of withered reeds; and dining at one of small restaurants sporadically located in the marsh
area. Before I knew it, the beautiful views of Toscana had been forgotten, and – I don’t know how to say it – I
came to think to focus my research on the rich and varied, not necessarily beautiful, views of the marshland;
1 Guardini R. (1993), Lettere dal Lago di Como. La tecnica e l'uomo, Giulietta Basso (a cura di), Morcelliana, Brescia, pp. 92-100.
2 https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/tv60bin/detail/index.cgi?das_id=D0009010265_00000
ESEMPI DI ARCHITETTURA, 2021, VOL.8, N.1

EDITORIAL | HUMAN HERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE 7
comprised of people, water, rows of small houses, farmland and tree-lined streets. Since then, I have been
virtually captivated by the landscapes of eastern Emilia-Romagna.
As evidenced in these personal experiences of mine, cultural landscapes are not something to be evaluated
based on aesthetic forms or historical and artistic values. A highly personal experience can give a special meaning
to an ordinary scene. When requested to write something on relationships between people and landscapes, what
came to my mind were these personal experiences.
A landscape will slowly change with the constant flow of time. However, if it were forced to change or
changed abruptly, people’s sensitivity would be seriously damaged by such changes. Since cultural landscapes
surround us as a sensitive environment, it is almost impossible to separate them from us. Indeed, cultural
landscapes are part of ourselves and resonate with us.
Noriko Inoue
Otemon Gakuin University | Japan
TOWARDS AN INTERCULTURAL HUMAN HERITAGE
The cultural heritage of the twenty-first century must be focused on the thought of “human heritage”, this
means that to understand, interpret, and investigate it, a constant task of epistemological construction is required.
This refers to the understanding of humanization in times of the need to claim a greater recognition for the
fundamental, such as human rights for the appropriation of one's own heritage; the reaffirmation of the
individual and group self-determination of those communities in all their conditions to promote an intercultural
human heritage and therefore of their community and the landscape.
Human heritage studies should then promote approaches that focus on people’s connections to heritage and
places; intercultural dialogue and understanding; sustainability and well-being in addressing local, national, and
international heritage policies and practices.
The current challenges in the recovery of heritage are to create synergies between the conservation and
management of cultural heritage in a sustainable manner, in relation to the diverse cultural, environmental, and
socioeconomic concerns of individuals and communities, through the creation of partnerships with relevant
sectors, such as health and social services, cultural and creative industries, nature and biodiversity conservation,
sustainable tourism, urban and territorial planning and development, responsible consumption, and the circular
green economy.
New challenges and perspectives are pending to be developed in front of the human heritage and what we
researchers have to say about the social innovation of heritage, or heritage in front of the post-development era, in
front of sustainable cultural development and bio culture. In an informational and pandemic era, the social
representations of heritage and its forms of appropriation must be carefully researched so that we can work with
communities.
Once again, in the depths of the nature-culture links, we find a whole range of symbolic relationships that in
their inner processes will reveal new problems that require very precise measures, in accordance with the impact
of the pandemic, the crisis of the capitalist model of accumulation, the culture of consumption and the
globalization of knowledge. Finding new answers to survival and of symbolic representation of the intercultural
landscapes.
Let’s remember that interculturality alludes to the conflict that articulates communities in their cosmological-
symbolic relationship with nature. The coexistence of social groups is determined by the complexities, within
them the difficulties, needs, and links with the contemporary environment. Also, with the added problems of the
aspirations and influences of globalization, migration, organized crime, social networks, and pandemics.
Finally, culture overcomes these problems. In the end, to understand the manifestations of culture, to put
them in value, and to achieve a greater knowledge and appropriation out of the ordinary, is a work of the
researcher of the intercultural human heritage.
César Augusto Velandia Silva

Universidad de Ibagué | Colombia

DOI 10.4399/97888255398682
THE END OF XOCHICALCO, A RITUAL DESTRUCTION?
ARNOLD LEBEUF
Emeritus Professor Institute for the History of Religions Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
a.lebeuf@iphils.uj.edu.pl
Accepted: October 30, 2020
ABSTRACT
Very numerous and different hypotheses have been proposed to explain the abandon of cities in ancient Mexico:
natural catastrophes, exhaustion of the soils, drought, end of goods, famines, intestine revolts, attacks by foreign
invaders, religious changes, ideological fights, and so on. Another one was presented by René Millon for the fall
of Teotihuacan, who claimed that Teotihuacan was destroyed by the leaders and elites of the city themselves, but
does not present any clear or precise reasons for such a strange and dramatic decision only proposing socio-
economic or ideological changes (Millon, 1988). Maybe the destruction was done in order to appease the anger
of the gods and beg for their clemency when would come the unavoidable end of their world. I think such a
possibility can be considered seriously for the destructions of Teotihuacan and Xochicalco. The dates of the New
Fire Ceremonies and the general cosmology of pre-Hispanic Mexico point at the year 623 AD as the end of a
“Sun” (a Mesoamerican era), the fourth and last Sun of their cosmology (Lebeuf, 2003). We find that date as the
most important anchor of the Venus counts in the Dresden Codex (1-Ahau 18 Kayab, 9.9.9.16.0). This event
would have required an exceptional sacrifice of the gods and for the gods in Teotihuacan and the ritual
destruction and profanation of its religious centre at the end of their fourth Sun. At the same time another
sacrifice would have taken place in Xochicalco for the founding of a new ideal city, another Tollan constructed
to be destroyed 208 years later, in the year 830 A.D. (Lebeuf, 2003: 223-240, 230, 239 note 655) as an offering
to the gods when would come the end of the great cycle of 5200 years of their own cosmology.
Keywords: Mexico, Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Cosmology.
“Most amusing still are the assertions of Augustin

Le Plongeon who saw in the iconography of the
pyramid of the Plumed Serpent a revelation about
the history and destruction of the lost continent of
Atlantis”
Kenneth Hirth, 2000:39, on Le Plongeon, 1913.
THE TEMPLE OF THE FEATHERED SERPENT IN XOCHICALCO

The temple of the feathered serpent is situated by 18˚48’16” North and 99˚17’47” West and it is the most
important monument of the site of Xochicalco in the state of Morelos, Mexico. The western façade bears a very
important and puzzling series of calendric inscriptions. The other three sides North, East and South are decorated
each one with two monumental representations of the feathered serpent and between its undulations are carved
alternatively the date 9-Ehecatl and a seated human figure who wears a very impressive headdress of large
feathers.
This motive of serpent, human figure and calendar date is repeated six times. All of this indicates that this
monument is dedicated to the god Quetzalcoatl 9-Ehecatl of ancient Mexico represented in three different forms:
his celestial form as a feathered serpent, his glyphic calendar name of 9-Ehecatl and his human form of the earthly
ideal king of Tollan (Roman Piña Chan, 1989). In the role of the king, Topiltzin is the sacrificial ixiptla of the god
Quetzalcoatl. We also find other iconographic references to that divine figure, for example the sea conchs
associated to the sound of the wind (Ehecatl), and the transversally cut sea snails or conchs in the shape of a five
branch star which are the specific attribute of Quetzalcoatl as Venus the morning star. Above the glyph 9-Ehecatl
is the representation of a small temple, both being framed by flames.
10 ARNOLD LEBEUF
Fig.1. The motive of feathered serpent, seated lord and the date 9-Ehecatl repeated six times on the talud of the temple in
Xochicalco.
Fig.2. (left), The date 9-Ehecatl.

Fig.3. (centre), Detail of the temple in flames, Xochicalco.
Fig.4. (right), A small temple stone sculture of the Mezcala culture (for comparison of the elementary representation of a
temple).
I did not find in the literature on Xochicalco that this element was ever noticed1 but this detail is of course
very meaningful for my hypothesis, how could they know at the time of construction that the temple would be
burned in the end if not because it had been perfectly planned already from the beginning? A representation of
the fire is also visible on the western corner of the southern upper part of the temple. Over the flames of that
panel is the representation of an eclipse, a disk inside a huge maw, and in front two human figures one behind
the other who might well be the sacrificial victim and the sacrificial priest, we notice the bound legs of the figure
in front of the other, the figure behind seems to wear a belt for the ball game, he might then be the winner of the
game presenting the defeated player for sacrifice. The relation of the ball game with ends and recreation of world
eras is well documented.
The temple of the Feathered Serpent is evidently very tightly related to the ceremonies of the New Fire and it
is highly possible that it was precisely in Xochicalco that took place the very important and memorable ceremony
which would become the model of the New Fire Ceremony and of sacrifice in general for all the post-classic
horizon. Xochicalco is very strongly related to the New Fire and another representation of it is accompanied by
the date 2-Coatl year 1-Tochtli on a boulder of a very different style.
1 The only mention I found was on an internet page by Marco M. Vigato The pyramid of Xochicalco: A monument to the end of times, The
other most recurring imagery on the lower band is a curious set of glyphs, appearing a total of 6 times within the coils of the snake. This set of glyphs contains the
calendric date “9 eye of reptile”, also associated with Quetzalcoatl, surmounted by what appears to be a temple from which emanate large tongues of fire. Interestingly,
a glyph in the shape of a volute, emanating from the serpent’s tail, appears to be hitting the temple as a giant wave. Similar volutes are also to be seen underneath the
temple, as if the intent of the artist was to represent the construction sinking underneath the waves. Where the temple in fire is noticed but then the author
interprets the flames around and over the 9-Ehecatl glyphs and the feather of the Serpent as waves, recalling of the sinking of Atlantis
claimed by Le Plongeon which hypothesis he is commenting.

THE END OF XOCHICALCO, A RITUAL DESTRUCTION? 11
5 6
Fig.5. Lord of Xochicalco, temple of the feathered serpent.
Fig. 6. Victim in front of the fire under an eclipse.
Fig. 7. Representation of the New Fire drilling and the dates 2-Coatl, year 1-Tochtli on an erratic stone from Xochicalco.
The year 1-Tochtli was the year of the New Fire Ceremony on the post classic Altiplano before the Aztec
reform putting this ceremony in the following year 2-Acatl (Caso, 1962). It is possible that the date 2-Coatl of the
year.1-Tochtli, marks the beginning of the third Sun in Xochicalco which corresponds to the start of the second
Sun of the Maya and altiplano post classic traditions. On the day 2-Coatl Year 1-Tochtli, 17.01.1872 AC, (JD
1037708), the sun was at two degrees from the node and Venus 31 days after. We will explain further down the
specificity of such a disposition. Because of the very different style I would rather suspect that this inscription was
carved in Xochicalco at the occasion of a ceremony held there by some newcomers long time after the abandon, in
the same way as the Aztecs continued to go for pilgrimage and sacrifices to Teotihuacan and other venerable
ruins of the glorious past, including Xochicalco. Why would they celebrate this date? Maybe to start their own
system which would give them another more Sun in the future. There is another possibility. The day 2-Coatl Year
1-Tochtli fell on the winter solstice of 1246 AD (1246.12.22, gregorian proleptic, JD 2176508), a date corresponding
to the Great New Fire Ceremony (Huehuetiliztli) every 104 years, four steps after the important year 830 (830;
934; 1038; 1142; 1246). Then the sun was at -18 days from the node, which means it was entering an eclipse zone, it
might have marked the start or end of some important period for the newcomers which were to become the
Aztecs and who were very ambitious from the beginning, maybe their first New Fire Ceremony after their
coming on the central Altiplano. Elsona and Smith write:
[…] The iconographic symbol of the New Fire Ceremony was a fire drill with flames. The earliest clear-cut
example of this occurs on a stone relief from Xochicalco, Morelos, in which the symbol is accompanied by
calendrical glyphs 1 Rabbit (a year designation) and 2 Snake (a probable day name). This stone is carved in
the Xochicalco sculptural style of a.d. 650–900 (Hirth 2000), and César Sáenz (1967) considers it a
commemoration of the first New Fire Ceremony. Emily Umberger (1987a, 1996) has shown that Mexica
artists deliberately imitated the sculptural styles of Xochicalco, Tula, and Teotihuacan. She notes that in
Tenochtitlan, “another sculpture with a date surrounded by a Xochicalco style frame was carved in
connection with the New Fire Ceremony of 1507, and the archaizing style recalls the site where the
Tenochca considered that their calendar was initiated and the first new fire was lighted” (Umberger 1996:
94; Elsona, Smith, 2001).

12 ARNOLD LEBEUF
In case of the first possibility in the year 1872 BC, it would be in accord with the general traditions of the
Maya, Xochicalco and other traditional systems for which the reference was to the nodal passages of the sun and
Venus inferior conjunction, but I only keep in mind this possibility with great caution. The second one for the
year 1246 AD, would fall in accord with the later Aztec system which retained only the entrance and exits of
certain days of the Metzpohualli in and out of eclipse zones. The reference to the year 1-Tochtli would indicate it
was carved before the Aztec reform on 2-Acatl. It would mark a first foundation ceremony by the future Aztecs
who appeared in history about the 12th or 13th century.
THE OBSESSION WITH TIME

We know well that all Mesoamerican civilisations were fascinated with time and created very sophisticated
calendar systems, half of their inscriptions are of chronological order. The cycles of time formed the basic frame of
their mythology, ritual and history. Religious and cultural activities were organized in accord with the structure
of their sacred calendar, up to the point that history itself was forced into the frame of the calendar and even re-
written to fit the general chronological and cosmological models. Individuals were named by the day of their
birth which ideally should also be the day of their death. Let us only recall the most basic time wheels they used.
The year called Xihuitl in Nahuatl and Haab among the Maya was of 365 days and was composed of 18 months of
twenty days to which were added five more days called Nemontemi/Uayeb. Another year count was the Maya
Tun of 360 days. Both were conventional expressions of the exact value of 365,2422 days for the solar tropical
year. They certainly knew this exact value but preferred to use the conventional counts in entire numbers. They
counted in the same formal way 584 days for the revolution of Venus but knew it was in reality of 583,92 days.2 A
third cycle which has been puzzling for most investigator was the Maya Tzolkin or Tonalpohualli in Nahuatl
which counted 260 days. Various proposals were presented and also that it had absolutely no relation with any
natural cycle. But in fact the solution was given already in 1930 by Hans Ludendorff director of the astronomical
observatory at Potsdam (Ludendorff, 1930). According to Ludendorff, the Tzolkin was created to represent the
cycle of the nodes of Moon orbit because 2 x 260 =520 and 520/3 gives 173,333 days, a length very close to the
exact value of 173,31 days which is the time for the sun to pass from one node of moon orbit to the other. For
ancient astronomers the localization of the nodes of moon orbit was of prime importance because this knowledge
is the basic condition needed for the prediction of eclipses. The knowledge of the cycles of the nodes of moon
orbit was also the most difficult to achieve because the nodes are invisible points at the crossroad of two invisible
circles, the orbits of the sun and of the moon, that is to say the abstraction of two abstractions, and moreover, all
of them moving in space, a very difficult thing to catch and fix. As we will see later, Venus helped them to solve
the problem.
The congruency of the Tzolkin with the nodes of Moon orbit leads to another very important cycle of 1 872 000
days called the Long Count. The Long Count is related both to the Tun and to the Tzolkin because it makes 5200
Tuns of 360 days and 7200 Tzolkins of 260 days. Hans Ludendorff also explained the length of that period. He
claimed that because of the small difference between the canonical 173,33 days (one third of 520) and the real
value of 173,31 days, the moments of passages of the Sun on the Nodes of Moon orbit drift in the tzolkin at the
rate of one day every 20 tuns (Ludendorff’s calculation), this means that to return to the same day in the Tzolkin,
the Sun-Node conjunctions has to regress 260 times 20 Tuns, that is 5200 Tuns. According to Ludendorff, the Long
Count is the module of correction at long term for the short-term eclipse predictor constituted by the Tzolkin. The
Tzolkin and the Long Count constitute together a small computer for eclipses (Ludendorff, 1930).
MILLENARIANISM
Mesoamerican mathematics, astronomy and calendars were based on the search for congruencies between
cycles expressed in entire numbers. The congruencies of astronomical cycles (conventional or real) were the
occasions of celebrations. The congruency between the cycles of 365 and 260 days produced the so-called
Xiuhmolpilli of 18980 days or “Binding of the years” and was celebrated every 52 years. Twice this length, that is
every 104 years returned the Huehuetiliztli when the cycles of 365 and 260 days were also congruent with the
Venus cycle of 584 days [(104 x 365) = (146 x 260) = (65 x 584)]. We know that Mesoamerican worldview was
strongly millenarian. People were waiting for the end of cycles in anguish. The end of every score or month of
twenty days was celebrated, and sacrifices were offered. In the Maya tradition, the ends of Tuns, Katuns,
Baktuns3 were celebrated and stelas erected to mark these milestones of time. At every end of Xihuitl/Haab years
the five additional days (Nemontemi/Uayeb) were spent in the dark, without fire or activities, hidden in fear,
deprivations and sacrifices and the first day after these unfortunate days was celebrated with joy and happiness
for the return to normality. The same last five days at the end of their small centuries of 52 years (Xiuhmolpilli) or
104 years (Huehuetiliztli) were especially spent with fear in hope that the new fire would be kindled again by the
priests for a new century to start, these were times of Sacrifices, purification and renewal of time. At that
occasions various objects of cult or of practical life such as tools and kitchenware, idols, domestic representations
2Also using their formal values: 5200 x 365 = 1898000; 1898000 – 260 = 1897740; 1897740 / 2350 = 583,92.
3The Tun is composed of 360 days; the Katun is of 20 Tun and the Baktun is of 20 Katun or 400 „years” of 360 days. 13 Baktun compose the
Long Count.

of divinities would be destroyed and renewed. The New Fire was lit on the chest of a sacrificial victim and was
distributed to all temples and communities of the surrounding land for the new “century” to start. The end of
calendar cycles and the key points of the cosmic order were moments of danger, of destructions and renewals. In
front of the imminent dangers coming, Mesoamerican societies were systematically offering sacrifices to their
gods to appease their wrath, begging for their clemency and ask them to save the world from destruction in those
crucial and dangerous moments when the cycles of time and cosmic eras were shifting. Every end of cycle was
accompanied by sacrifices and ritual destructions which varied according to the nature and importance of those
cycles. Among the most important sacrifices were works of art, precious stones, gold, human beings and the
dearest ones, children. Such events occurred at all completions of time cycles. We know well according to the
sources that the end of the eras called “Suns” of Mesoamerican cosmology were accompanied by periodical
destructions and re-creations by the gods. This is well illustrated by the destructions of previous worlds and
humanities. Among other texts the Leyenda de los Soles recalls these periodic quasi total destructions of the
world and successive humanities. Human sacrifices for the renovation of the world is well illustrated by the
oblation of Nanahuatzin in Teotihuacan. Destructions and reconstructions of such impressive monuments as the
Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan could also take place for the inauguration of a new Tlatoani, marking the start of a
new reign, a new epoch. According to the so-called Toltec traditions, the death and enthronisations were spaced
at 52 years distance coinciding with the Xiuhmolpilli. Many other sources confirm those cyclic destructions and
restauration of the successive worlds by the gods. The end of eras called “Suns” were the occasion of sacrifices of
major importance, accompanied by massive destructions.4 If the end of the “Suns” of 1248 or 1040 years (Lebeuf,
2003; 2009a) were the occasion of important destructions and sacrifices, the end of the large cycle of the Long
Count of 5200 years, a periodic “end of the world” should have been the occasion of really gigantic sacrifices.
That is precisely what I suppose happened with the sudden destructions of Teotihacan and Xochicalco in the
years 623 and 830 AD respectively.
FEAR OF ECLIPSES
Eclipses were associated with their different “Ends of the World”.
[…] The fatality of an eclipse, according to the Maya Cosmovision, is strong and clear, as an eclipse may
also be named alternatively using the terms xu’tan or xulik’tan, which means “the end of the world”. The
recurrent destructions of the world’s eras are said to have begun with an eclipse. For them, eclipses foretell
the holocaust” (Ruiz Gallut 1992: 216; Closs 1989: 393). “Lacandon believe that a total eclipse precedes the
end of the world, when this occurs the heavenly jaguar will land on earth in darkness and will devour
everybody” (Closs, 1989: 393b). “The Lacandon fear that the world will end during an eclipse. In such
occasions, men sing to their god Ac Yanto, supplicating him to ask Hachacyum to retain the calamity
before it leads to the final end of the world. Almost everywhere in Mesoamerica the custom is to make as
much noise as possible, beat the drums and dogs to make them bark and howl, shooting guns, everything
possible is done to stop the eclipse5 that is to scare away the monster attacking the star. On july 16th of
1935, my godfather Jacinto Cunil, wrote to me in his uncertain Spanish about what happened in the Maya
village of Socotz, in Belize: “In the night between the 15th and the 16th of this month was an eclipse of the
moon. All the people were scared, they said the world was going to end on that night. They made a lot of
noise beating on cans and boxes and ringing the bells. There were prayers and processions at one o’clock
that night. All were awake as they believed the moment of the Last Judgement had come. The tzeltales of
Oxchuc consider as well that the eclipses of the sun are announcing that God will send his punishment”
(Thompson, 1988: 183; Baer y Baer 1952: 23; Villa Rojas 1946: 569).
We could gather a very long list of such beliefs in Mesoamerica and in the whole world indeed.
COSMOLOGY
In previous studies (Lebeuf, 2003; 2009a) I claimed that the cosmology of Xochicalco was structurally the same
as the system which can be reconstructed with the help of the Venus table in the Dresden Codex but with one
“Sun” of 1247 years of anticipation. The cosmology of Xochicalco would not have started in 3119 BC as in the
Maya tradition but in the year 4366 BC and finished in the year 830 AD. It consisted of four “Suns” or eras of 780
cycles of Venus each which sums up to 3120 cycles of Venus or 48 ceremonies of the New Fire (Huehuetiliztli of
104 years or 65 Venus cycles), but as the complete cosmological cycle counted 50 of those Huehuetiliztli and New
Fire ceremonies, two more ceremonies had to be added to complete the 5200 years of the Long Count. That
cosmological system would count four Suns of twelve sequences starting respectively in 4366 BC, 3119 BC, 1872
BC, 625 BC, The fourth and last Sun would finish in the year 623 AD with a passage of the Sun on a day 9-Ehecatl,
followed by an inferior conjunction of Venus 32 days later, on a day 1-Acatl. To complete the Long cycle of 5200
years (or 3250 Venus Cycles), would be needed another two Huehuetiliztli of 104 years, that is 208 years leading
4 11 See the Leyenda de los Soles, in Codice Chimalpopoca, 1845.

5 That is a universal custom found among others in Peru, Russia, India, China, etcetera,

14 ARNOLD LEBEUF
to the year 830 A.D with a nodal passage of the sun on a day 11-Ozomatli followed by a final inferior conjunction
of Venus on a day 4-Calli (21.12.830 AD, JD 2024566).
To resume, let us consider that for the tradition held in Xochicalco, the cosmological system was of 50
sequences of 104 years, making together 5200 years (or more precisely 3250 cycles of Venus). It started on a day
11-Ozomatli in the year 4366 BC with the passage of the sun on the node of moon orbit and finished 5200 years
later also on a day 11-Ozomtli of the year 830 AD coinciding again with the nodal passage of the Sun, both of
these dates preceding an inferior conjunction of Venus 32 days later on a day 4-Calli.6
THE NEW FIRE CEREMONY

As already mentioned, the New Fire Ceremonies were like milestones marking time every 52 years
(Xiuhmolpilli) and every 104 years (Hehuetiliztli). We know a few of the dates of those ceremonies from
historical, mythological and epigraphic inscriptions and can easily reconstruct the others at multiples of 104 years
distances. The ceremonies of the New Fire known as Huehuetiliztli were the most important ones as their name
indicates, which means the ancient ones or the venerable ones, ”una antiguedad” they marked every 104 years
the congruency of the Tzolkin of 260 days, the Haab of 365 days and Venus cycle of 584 days (146 x 260 = 104 x
365 = 65 x 584). In fact, what was decisive in those moments was the congruency of Venus and the nodes of moon
orbit, because every 104 years the following figure returns very regularly in the sky. We must now abandon the
conventional values for the exact natural ones.
*= Venus conjunctions with the sun (inferior or superior).

N. = conjunction of the sun and the nodes of moon orbit
d = days
*------------32-----------N.-------------260-------------*------------260-------------N.------------32------------*
Venus Inf. C.+32 d = N. +260 d = Venus Sup C. +260 d = N. +32 d = Venus Inf. C.
Fig.8.
Every 104 years (more precisely, every 65 natural cycles of Venus), Venus is congruent with the passage of the
sun alternatively on one or the other of the nodes of moon orbit forming this very regular symmetric pattern. It is
clear that the knowledge of this specific arrangement offers the possibility of knowing precisely the position of
the Nodes of Moon orbit by the observation of the inferior conjunctions of Venus every 104 years when was
celebrated the New Fire Ceremony. This congruency which offers a practical use of Venus for eclipse previsions
explains well the reason why, very curiously, in Mesoamerica Venus was considered the factor of eclipses (Closs,
1989). Here Venus appears as the visible aspect of the invisible node of moon orbit. This very singular regular and
symmetrical formation returns in the sky very precisely on the dates known for the celebrations of the New Fire
Ceremonies every 104 years but with one month of anticipation in the solar tropical year. The following dates
indicate the relevant inferior conjunction of Venus every 104 years (65 true Venus cycles). Due to this regression
of those dates by 30 degrees every 65 Venus cycles, we observe that after twelve of these steps the conjunction
returns to its initial date in the tropical year. Here are the dates of 12 successive Venus inferior conjunctions every
104 years.
623. 02. 20
727. 01. 21
830. 12. 21
934. 11. 21
1038. 10. 22
1142. 09. 22
1246. 08. 21
1350. 07. 22
1454. 06. 22
1558. 05. 23
1662. 04. 21
1766. 03. 21
1870. 02. 20
Table 1.
6 On table 2 are given the numbers indicating the small difference between the model and the exact values.

It means that the regression of the congruency Sun-Nodes-Venus reaches a full solar tropical year after twelve
New Fire Ceremonies (12 x 65* = 780* or 1247 tropical years). Such a complete revolution of this figure around the
solar year corresponded to one period of creation, one era or one Sun.7
Here under are the dates of inferior conjunctions of Venus at 1247 years distance (780 Venus cycles).
16 II 4366 BC Venus 0 N.34

16 II 3119 BC Venus 0 N.33
17 II 1872 BC Venus 0 N.33
19 II 625 BC Venus 0 N.33
20 II 623 AD Venus 0 N.32
Table 2.
We can see the remarkable stability of these conjunctions. For 5000 years the shift of Venus in the tropical year
is only of four days and the discrepancy between Venus and the node of only two days (Lebeuf 2003; 2008).
We know that before the Aztec reform Mesoamerican cosmological systems counted four “Suns”, which
means 4 x 12 Huehuetiliztli, summing up to 48 segments of 104 years or 4992 years. Then 208 years or two New
Fire Ceremonies more were needed to complete the great cycle of 5200 years. We can see in the following figure
that the models proposed for the Maya and Xochicalco are structurally identical but separated by one epoch or
“Sun” of 780 true Venus cycles or 1247 tropical years (Lebeuf, 2003; 2009 a; 2009b).
Fig.9. Two different arrangements of the general cosmology for Xochicalco and the Maya
If the figure proposed here of a perfectly symmetrical organization of Venus phases and the nodal passage of
the Sun was really the condition which decided the moments of the New Fire Ceremonies, it means that before
the Aztec reform this ceremony was synchronized all over Mesoamerica and all through its history, regardless of
the changes of year names in the different systems of year bearers, and of the precise event chosen inside the
figure. In the Dresden Codex, it was the 1-Ahau 18 Kayab for the conventional heliacal rise of Venus, in
Xochicalco the real conjunctions of the sun with the lunar node and Venus. In Diego de Landa on the first
conjunction of the sun on the node of lunar orbit inside the 584 days figure mentioned here (17.11.1556, JD
2289698), it means 32 days after the first Venus conjunction instead of 32 days before the second conjunction
(Lebeuf, 2003:218; Spinden 1928:57; Landa, 1938:196-198). But always inside this figure and in the same years at
104 years distances. The Aztecs displaced the ceremony one year later and only retained the entrances and exits of
chosen days in and out of the eclipse zones in the Tonalpohualli, and that is the reason why I dared propose an
hypothetical date of 1246.12.22 for the problematic 2-Coatl Year 1-Tochtli in Xochicalco8.
THE DATE 9-EHECATL

The site of Xochicalco is characterized by the insistent presence of the day name 9-Eye of Reptile which,
according to Alfonso Caso corresponds to the day 9-Wind (9-Ehecatl). This date of 9-Ehecatl is together with the
date 1-Acatl one of the two most common calendric names of Quetzalcoatl. This day sign is repeated six times
between the undulations of the feathered serpent which confirms the identification of the temple, its dedication
to Quetzalcoatl 9-Ehecatl. Three more instances of that same date 9-Ehecatl are found, one among the calendar
inscriptions on the right side of the façade of the feathered serpent temple, another on a megalith accompanied on
the other side of that stone slab by the year bearer date 6-Acatl and four crossed circles, and the third on the stela
de los dos glifos.
7We also note that good fortune wanted these conjunctions to fall as well with the colures of the year, on solstices and equinoxes.
8Lebeuf, 2009. This inscription could not have been carved by the Aztecs after they had introduced their reform because it would have been
then related to the year 2-Acatl and not 1-Tochtli. This means that the reference to the entrances and exits of Metzpohualli days in and out
of eclipses zone for the new Fire Ceremony could have been borrowed by the Aztecs from another earlier tradition.

16 ARNOLD LEBEUF
10 11 12 13
Fig 10. Day 9-Ehecatl repeated six times on the talud of the temple in Xochicalco.
Fig.11. Day 9-Ehecatl carrying the sky, right side of Facade of the Feathered Serpent temple Xochicalco.
Fig.12. 9-Ehecatl on the Monolith with the year 6-Acatl and four crossed circles on opposite side, Xochicalco.
Fig.13. Stela de los dos glifos.
Let us now remember the general figure of the nodes and Venus returning every 104 years in the documented
years of the New Fire Ceremony. In the year 623, the Sun passed on the node of Moon orbit on a day 9-Ehecatl
(20.01.623, JD 1948625). And the subsequent conjunction of Venus following this 9-Ehecatl date in 623 fell on a
day 1-Acatl (20.02.623, JD 1948656). This coincidence in that crucial year of the New Fire ceremony is evidently of
great interest as these two dates are the two most common calendar names of Quetzalcoatl.
In Xochicalco the date 9-Ehecatl is associated to the year 6-Acatl. We will comment this 6-Acatl year bearer
later, let us first discuss the 1-Acatl date corresponding to Venus inferior conjunction associated to the nodal 9-
Ehecatl in the year 623.
THE YEAR 1-ACATL

Of course, the day 1-Acatl related to Quetzalcoatl is mentioned everywhere as a year bearer day. According to
the known postclassical calendar on the Altiplano the year 623 AD should have been a year 1-Tochtli. For
example, when the Spaniards came in the year 1519, it was a year 1-Acatl in the calendar of Tenochtitlan. The
Aztecs themselves and almost all later commentators were misled by this date and took it for the prophesized
year of the return of Quetzalcoatl. But that 1-Acatl year date was then obsolete, it had become only ritual,
conventional and emblematic for the birth and death of Quetzalcoatl and all had forgotten then that the date 1-
Acatl for the birth, death and return of Quetzalcoatl belonged to an ancient tradition which had used another set
of year bearers. In its original calendar which I call “Toltec”, Mixteca or Cholula this 1-Acatl year for the
prophesized return of Quetzalcoatl should have fallen on a New Fire Ceremony year,9 with a shift of 13 years
earlier than the place it occupied in the 1-Tochtli system, that is to say not in the year 1519 but in 1506/1507. Hugo
Moedano had already discussed this problem in his paper “1-Acatl igual 2-Acatl” (Moedano, 1951). I agree with
him in general terms but would prefer the solution “1-Acatl igual 1-Tochtli” because the Aztec reform to celebrate
the New Fire in the years 2-Acatl was a late eccentric invention but the traditional year for the ceremony had been
for long the years 1-Tochtli in post-classic cultures of the altiplano. In the original tradition concerning
Quetzalcoatl, the 1-Acatl years necessarily had to include the New Fire Ceremony. It means that in that specific
year bearer convention (“Toltec”, mixteca, Cholula), the 20th of January 623 was a day 9-Ehecatl of a year 1-Acatl.
In these conditions, and if Venus and the node of lunar orbit are intrinsically connected, the situation of the nodes
and Venus for the New Fire at Xochicalco are of course of the highest interest.
Julian day 1948625; 9-Ehécatl; 20.I.623; Node 1; Venus -31.

Julian day 1948656; 1-Acatl; 20.II.623; Node 32; Venus 0.
THE YEAR BEARER 6-ACATL

All that is very nice but in Xochicalco we do not encounter the year bearer 1-Acatl, we are confronted to
another year bearer system. In two instances, once on the calendar inscriptions of the façade of the Temple and
the other on a large monolith, the date 9-Ehecatl is accompanied by the year bearer 6-Acatl.
9 This would need a long explanation but let us only mention here that according to various sources, the Toltec kings, among others
Quetzalcoatl, were supposed to live or reign for 52 or 104 years, just the same as the lapse of time between New Fire Ceremonies. Idealy, the
death and enthronizations of Toltec kings weresynchronized with the New Fire Ceremonies. More information on the subject will be found
in my book “Topiltzin Actor” to be published in 2021 or 2022.

14 15
Fig. 14. (left), year 6-Acatl, left side of Facade of the Feathered Serpent temple.
Fig. 15. (right), four crossed circles over the year 6-Acatl monolith with the date 9- Ehecatl on the other side.
Because the temple in Xochicalco is evidently a monument dedicated to the New Fire Ceremony and the year
bearer 6-Acatl is the most prominent in the inscriptions, accompanying the principal calendar set on the facade of
the temple, I believe that the year 6-Acatl was in the convention of Xochicalco the year of the New Fire
ceremonies, in this case corresponding approximately to the years 623 A.D and 830 AD. To pass from a year 1-
Tochtli to a year 6- Acatl, is not very complicated, it is enough to change the year bearer reference day in the
Xihuitl from 20 Tititl to 5 Nemontemi. In other words, from the last day of the last month of 20 days (day 360) to
the last day of the five additional nameless days (day 365). Only 5 days of shift. This might give another
indication concerning the different influences in Xochicalco. If the last day of the year is the last Nemontemi, it
means that the first day of the following year is the first day of the first month which recalls the Maya system
using the start of the year on 0 Pop for year bearer. The fifth of Nemontemi can be considered as the “seat” of the
first month of the next year, expressed by zero of the first month in the Maya system. The influence of Maya
traditions has been noticed and commented for long, for example by the Maya convention of writing 5 by a bar.
This position of the year bearer on 5 Nemontemi might be another one of them.
Here are the positions of the years of the New Fire Ceremonies according to these different year bearers.
-The year 1-Tochtli ends on 3.09.623 AD the year bearer being the day 20 Tititl (JD 1948851) (Caso, 1967; 1971).
-The year 6-Acatl ends on 8.09.623 AD the year bearer being the day 5th of Nemontemi (JD1948856).
-The year 1-Acatl ends on 7.11.623 A.D., the year bearer being on the day 20 Tlacaxipehualiztli (JD 1948916).
-The year 1-Ik starts on 7.03.622 A.D., the year bearer being the day 0 Pop (JD 1948306).
All four of these systems include the Nodal passage of the Sun on 20 I 623 and the inferior conjunction of
Venus 32 days later on 20 II 623 which command the New Fire Ceremonies.
11-OZOMATLI AND 4-CALLI
Fig. 16. The astronomical panel left side of the façade, temple of the feathered serpent, Xochicalco.
The most prominent and puzzling part of the calendar inscriptions on the façade of the temple in Xochicalco is
a cartouche with the date 4-Calli from which emerge two hands, one of them holds a rope tied to another
cartouche with the glyph 11-Ozzomatli. The other hand seems to drop a glyph with one point inside, a number
one. Does it represent a day? a chalchihuitl? a xihuitl? a year?

18 ARNOLD LEBEUF
It is here necessary to precise that the date which I present here as a 4-Calli is only one of several possibilities
of interpretation of this puzzling calendar inscription on the façade of the temple. The glyph Calli (house or
temple) is absolutely clear but the number under it is problematic. There is a bar which counts for five (5) under
which we see five points of which four are in a row and one is falling. So that we are in front of several logical
possibilities of interpretation. Taking one unit only from the number 10 of the 10-Calli we reach 9-Calli, but taking
off one day from 10-Calli, we reach 9-Ehécatl. Or the five points could also represent the five (5) expressed by the
bar on which is done an operation, and then it could as well be read 5-Calli or 4-Calli or 4-Ehecatl. Of course, the
possibility of a 9-Ehecatl is appealing, and the day 5-Calli is also of interest as it marks the Nodal passage at the
beginning of the fourth and last Sun in Xochicalco, in the year 625 BC. But of all these possibilities let us only
retain for now the date 4-Calli which seems to correspond the best to the general logic of the inscriptions on this
façade, especially because this date 4-Calli is also found in another inscription in Xochicalco (fig.15).
Acknowledging anyway that the question stays opened because if they only and simply wanted to write the date
4-Calli, they did not need to enter into such acrobatics. Very probably this date is polyvalent. We are evidently in
front of a mathematical equation or operation related to cosmology (maybe 5-Calli for the start of the last Sun and
4-Calli for the end of their Long Count).
The reason of my choice to read 4-Calli is that first, the last inferior conjunction of Venus in the long Count of
5200 years or 2350 Venus cycles falls on a day 4-Calli, and most significantly on a winter solstice, just as also do
the last day of the Maya Long Count and the last Venus inferior conjunction at the end of the Maya and Aztec
cosmologies. Second, the dates 11- Ozomatli and 4-Calli literally bound together by a rope indicate in 830 AD the
same astronomical singularities as the dates 9-Ehecat and 1-Acatl in 623 AD at 208 years distance.
9-Ehécatl JD 1948625 20. I. 623 Node 1 Venus -31

1-Acatl JD 1948656 20. II. 623 Node 32 Venus 0
11-Ozomatli JD 2024534 19. XI. 830 Nodo 1 Venus -32

4-Calli JD 2024566 21.XII. 830 Nodo 33 Venus 0
If the dates 11-Ozomatli and 4-Calli correspond respectively to the nodal passage of the Sun and Venus
inferior conjunction in the year 830 A.D., it can as well refer to the same situation 5200 “years earlier”, that is in
4366 A.C.
All those considerations lead me to claim that the days 11-Ozomatli and 4-Calli in the year 830 AD marked
respectively the last sun-node conjunction and the last inferior Venus conjunction at the end of a 5200 years great
cycle of 3250 Venus cycles and that 208 years earlier in 623 AD had taken place the end of the fourth Sun of the
cosmology accepted in Xochicalco when the Sun was passing the node on a day 9-Ehecatl and Venus was in
inferior conjunction on a day 1-Acatl. On the monolith with the dates 9-Ehecatl year 6-Acatl we also see four
crossed circles very similar to those found in the mouth of the dragon all around the upper frieze of the temple.
There, they very certainly represent the sun in eclipse and on the monolith the same crossed circle should mean
“One sun”, that is one long period of 1247 years (780 Venus Cycles). The word “Sun” was used for the solar disc
but also for an era, so that in my opinion the four crossed circles found on the monolith represent the four suns of
that cosmology and the date 9-Ehecatl of the year 6-Acatl represents precisely this completion in the year 623 AD
of the fourth Suns of twelve New Fire Ceremonies (4 x 12 x 104 years) in a year 6-Acatl of the local year bearers
system at Xochicalco.
Fig.17. Representation of an eclipse, Xochicalco.
It is certainly interesting as well to mention that there was an annular eclipse of the Sun visible in
Mesoamerica on January 9 (Julian 6th) 623 on a day 11-Ozomatli, it means eleven days before the mentioned 9-
Ehecatl. It would certainly have been noticed and meaningful for them, but I do not think it is relevant for the
present investigation. I do not believe such a magnificent monument and complicated cosmological set of dates
could have been motivated by such a single event, even if it fell on a very meaningful day for them. It is not an
isolated date but only one element in a complex set.

THE COLLAPSE OF TEOTIHUACAN

If a great sacrifice for the celebration of the New Fire Ceremony in 623 AD at the completion of the fourth sun
took place at Xochicalco which was then just a mountain top, it was with the project of building a new city, to
take a new start for the renewal of the next and final 208 years of their great cycle. The great ceremony of 9-
Ehecatl in the year 623 was inaugural, at the same time or shortly after the destruction of Teotihuacan. We find in
Xochicalco the presence of different cultures from orient and occident but the main influence was from
Teotihuacan. This does not mean necessarily that different groups of people came directly from distant regions to
meet in Xochicalco for a common project, it is rather possible that those eclectic styles reflect a selected
congregation of different groups coming all of them and together from Teotihuacan to create the new city after
the collapse of Teotihuacan, possibly the same people who had organized the destruction of Teotihuacan, decided
to start anew somewhere else. It is well known that Teotihuacan was inhabited by groups of different regions and
nations and that each one was living in separate quarters and keeping its own traditions, but such social
conditions of a mosaic of diverse cultures do not mean that the elites and more especially the intellectual class,
priests, architects astronomers did not work together and share their knowledge and political decisions, they
could well have gathered for a common project. In case Xochicalco was built in 623 to be destroyed ritually in 830
by a congregation of selected elites from Teotihuacan, it is worth investigating if Teotihuacan could not have been
destroyed also for ritual reasons just before the construction of Xochicalco, and more precisely in 623 at the
completion of the fourth Sun. We must remember that according to all investigators, the epi-classic sites such as
Xochicalco, Cacaxtla, Tula, Cholula and others would have arisen from the debris of Teotihuacan. It seems that
Xochicalco in particular was founded by a cosmopolite elite coming from Teotihuacan just about the time when
Teotihuacan was destroyed. My hypothesis is that The destruction of Teotihuacan possibly falls under the same
reasons and logic as that proposed here for Xochicalco. It was planned for the year 623 at the end of the fourth
and last Sun of 1247 years of their specific system which would have been then the same as the system exposed
for Xochicalco, ie. Four suns of 1247 years each starting in the year 4366 BC. The idea of a ritual destruction has
been expresses before by the most eminent investigator of Teotihuacan. André Millon came to the conclusion that
Teotihuacan had been destroyed and burned ritually by its own ruling class in order to profane the religious
centres of the city.
[…] The destruction of the city: Fire and destructions, looting. The analysis of the surface materials and the
inspection of the main quarters of the city have shown that it came to an end by violence, fires and sacking
of all the ceremonial centre. The original idea of Batres confirmed by other investigators such as Armillas,
Bernal and others that Teotihuacan was destroyed by fire has been confirmed by the investigations
realized during the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (Moragas Segura, 1995: 262; Armillas 1950: 69; Bernal
1963; Millon 1973, 1988).
The virulence of the destruction of Teotihuacan can be explained in a symbolic context as a process of
desacralization (Millon 1988). This process of desacralisation seems to have had consequences.
Teotihuacan will not recover its leading position in the region although it remained a major religious
centre at least during the early post-classic period. The fall of the city marks the end of the classical
horizon on the Altiplano and is the start of a new political and social structure. With its destruction,
Teotihuacan will lose its political, economic and religious power on all of the Altiplano. According to
Millon, Teotihuacan never return to its importance as a religious centre of first rank, but in a certain way it
is not exact because it continued to be a reference for posterior populations. We must keep in mind the
idea of Millon that the destruction of Teotihuacan not only was done by the teotihuacan people themselves
by also that its purpose was to destroy its political and religious character, and as this investigator himself
says, if the determination was political, the form the destruction took was ritual (Moragas Segura, 1995:
262-263; Millon 1988: 155).
The detailed analysis of the site led Millon to conclude that the fire and the destruction of the religious
buildings were provoked by the inhabitants of Teotihuacan themselves and were of a ritual character. In
fact the traces of fire and destructions of the temples and sacred images present specific traits which seem
to indicate acts of de-sacralisation more than looting and social violence directed against a specific social
group or social class, which might have been affected though. We also have indications that the
habitational complexes were further inhabited for a certain time (Gomez Chavez and Gazzola, 2004: 15)
We must then abandon the hypothesis of a popular revolt against the leading class, especially because claims
of robberies and expeditions of looting cannot be sustained, at most there were some plundering or intents of
saving some precious relics by some groups who did not necessarily agree with that general destruction.
[…] In some of the cases we think that these acts were not of any kind of robbery but were motivated by
the desire to recuperate relics of the founding ancestors of the quarters or of the temples (Gomez Chavez
and Gazzola, 2004:15).

20 ARNOLD LEBEUF
At the end of calendar cycles all the sacrifices and ritual destructions were meant to conciliate the gods in
order to please them recreate the world for the next cycle or epoch, to beg them allow the continuation of life or
its renewal. In such a case, the end of the fourth and last Sun of a great cycle of 5200 years would have required a
general sacrifice, a total destruction. In front of the threat of the end of the world, when everything would be
destroyed and lost anyway, it is possible that for a culture totally immersed in its own millenarian religious
system with an exceptionally strong sense of predestination and fatality in front of cosmic laws against which
even the gods were powerless, it appeared that the last chance to save something at all, the only solution was to
sacrifice everything possible in hope that it might appease the wrath of the gods and save a little rest to start a
new world. This might well have been the logic leading to the sudden destruction of Teotihuacan. The fact that
the religious symbols of the centre were systematically destroyed does not contradict at all such a possibility, as
we know well that on a smaller scale during the five days at the ends of years or centuries, statues and images of
the idols were destroyed to be renewed.
The fall of Teotihuacan and the date of its destruction had been for years the object of many different
hypothesis and polemics when for calendar and astronomical reasons I proposed such a possibility for the year
623 AD. I consulted Linda Manzanilla who insisted that the Great Fire which destroyed the religious centre of
Teotihuacan took place about 550 AD, which means well before the date I proposed,10 but other authors present
other later dates.11 For example Sarah C. Clayton writes:
[…] Growing evidence, primarily from the capital (but see Parsons et al. 1996), has prompted revisions to
the timing of the collapse, from the 700s (Millon 1988) to the 600s (Cowgill 2015) or earlier (Beramendi-
Orosco et al. 2008; Clayton, 2016: 107.).et ailleurs, Although there is no consensus on the specific changes
that constitute the end of Teotihuacan society, destructive events, Millon puts it in the seventh century and
there are still other opinions. Certain divergence in the development of the city and the surrounding
region, the valley of Mexico, added to the presence of Coyotlateco materials in slightly earlier epochs
served to define the Metepec phase to a little more than 50 years (550 – 600 d.C. accorfing o Garcia
Chavez, (1998:481. Natalia Moragas Segura writes: The last polemics concerning the C14 datations in
Teotihuacan refer to the last phases of that culture. We dispose of only few absolute dates, UCLA-1484:
650+/-120 d.C. y UCLA-1484: 700+/-120 d.C. of Yayahuala y UCLA-613: 680+/- 80 d.C. from the upper
pavement of the Pyramid of the Sun (Rattray 1991 :lo-1 1).These are in agreement with what we know
about Teotihuacan (Moragas Segura 2005: 191-204).
The Metepec phase is generally considered as the last of Teotihuacan before the general collapse. All of those
three C14 measures encompass the year 623 proposed here, and the evrage gives the year 676, which means much
later than the 550 AD proposed by Manzanilla and often repeated.
Different explanations have been produced to explain the destruction and abandon of Teotihuacan but even a
decadency caused by the loss of recourses or ecological catastrophe or exhaustion of the soils or destruction
caused by rebellions or violent invasions and vandalism do not exclude the possibility of a ritual destruction. It
seems to me probable that the priests and leaders of Teotihuacan might have planned a long time in advance the
ritual destruction for the year 623 AD. All signs of impoverishment, misery, social movements, foreign invasions
could only have convinced the ruling class that the predicted end of epoch was really approaching. The fact that it
could have been sacked and looted before because of social or political uprising or invasions would not change
anything, on the contrary, such events, disorders and unrest could only convince that the end was coming and
that it was time to gather a small selected choice of people to end the trouble and start something new
somewhere else. Unfortunately, we dispose of only very few calendar inscriptions from Teotihuacan in general
and none that might help to confirm or reject the proposed hypothesis.
DATATION OF THE FOUNDATION OF XOCHICALCO.

Taking in account that the site of Xochicalco was occupied between the seventh and ninth or sporadically
tenth centuries and that the New Fire ceremonies were held regularly every 104 years, we can calculate from the
dates known historically all the years of celebrations which were the same all over Mesoamerica and for the first
one in Xochicalco we would reach the year 623 AD. That would be the year of the great foundation sacrifice. The
victim representing the life and death of the god Quetzalcoatl received the name of 9-Ehecatl, for the day of his
divinization, that is of his sacrificial death. This means that the great founding ceremony in Xochicalco would
have taken place on a day 9-Ehecatl in the year 623 AD At the same time when Teotihuacan was destructed, or
shortly after, and the city of Xochicalco would have then been planned and founded. The earliest dates in
Xochicalco and their localization agree with such a proposal.
10Comunicación personal; Laura E. Beramendi-Orosco et al.2009.

El fin de Teotihuacan, in Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks ...Escrito por Janet Catherine Berlo
11
https://www.tesisenred.net/bitstream/handle/10803/2587/5.CAP5.pdf?sequence=7 )

[…] (In Xochicalco), the three oldest dates correspond to the substructures of the pyramid of the Feathered
Serpent, the acropolis and the substructure of the Twin Pyramid, and they indicate that the construction
on the central place started around the year 650 AD (González, Garza; Palavicini; Alvarado, 2008).
But these early datations concern the Principal Temple of the Feathered Serpent which covers an older
structure.
[...] Bajo la plataforma se encontró un edificio anterior, construido sobre un pequeño basamento de escasa
altura y perfeccamente conservado, compuesto de un solo cuarto con altar al centro … En la siguiente
etapa constructiva este cuarto fue ampliado al prolongar los muros laterales y crear de nuevo pequeños
muros frontales con nichos, además de agregar dos pilares al frente … Tanto este edificio como la
ampliación se encuentran sobre el mismo piso de la Plaza Principal ... Es importante comentar que cuando
se construyó la pirámide quitaron el techo y rellenaron cuidadosamente el recinto … donde se encontró la
muestra de carbón que se mandó analizar. Ésta era un fragmento de madera de pino depositado como
parte del relleno para cubrir las subestructuras al iniciar los trabajos de construcción de la Pirámide de las
Serpientes Emplumadas. El resultado del análisis (fig. 9: DRI -2886) señala un lapso entre 635 y 669 d.C., la
fecha más temprana hasta el momento para la arquitectura monumental en Xochicalco (González, Garza;
Palavicini; Alvarado, 2008).
Those archaeological dates are of course not of an absolute precision but only approximations based on
chronological methods such as ceramic series, thermo- luminescence and Carbon 14, but anyway these dates
agree well with my proposal for a memorable sacrifice in 623. Probably the sacrifice took place on a bare
mountain and only then would be taken the decision to start the construction. First of all, all the top of the
mountain had to be levelled and was cut and worked into terraces. It was a titanic work evidently the levelling
of the site was planned and done before the start of the construction of the temple itself and it would take many
years, so the accepted dates for the oldest carbon 14 under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent around 650 is
perfect for the mountain landscaping and levelling to start shortly after the event of 623. Especially worth of
consideration is that this C14 analysis for around the year 650 was made on a piece of wood found in the fillings
to cover a first smaller and older temple, necessarily built earlier. 623 would be perfect.
THE END OF XOCHICALCO

I have proposed that the site of Xochicalco was destroyed ritually by its leaders as a sacrifice to the gods in the
year 830 AD at the end of the 5200 years of their cosmology which had started in 4366 BC The results of the
datations of Xochicalco by ceramic series, thermo-luminescence or carbon 14 by different investigators and in
particular by Norberto Gonzales and Silvia Garza Tarazona in the Xochicalco Project do not permit to confirm or
refute the dates proposed here. The site was still occupied until about the end of the ninth or tenth century but in
the radiocarbon dates given by Gonzales et al. 2008, we find a group of four estimations about 824, 834, 826 and
830, which give an everage of 828,5 AD. That is very near to my precise proposal for the year 830. What is certain
is that if there was a massive destruction in the year 830, it does not mean that the place was completely and
definitively abandoned as we find traces of occupation later and up to the end of the millennium approximately.
The same was observed in Teotihuacan where minor occupations were detected after the collapse. We find in
Xochicalco the same kind of destructions as in Teotihuacan, in particular the religious monuments were
deliberately set fire and destroyed. Of course, here again this could reflect the conquest of the site by some
invaders as it was the custom in Mesoamerica to burn the temple and destroy or steal and deport the idols of the
conquered cities. But both in Xochicalco and Teotihuacan archaeologists and investigators insisted on the fact that
the destruction had been executed by the inhabitants themselves, some authors think of a popular uprising, a
revolt against the ruling class, but I personally doubt very much in such an explanation for Teotihuacan or
Xochicalco. In both cases the reasons proposed for such revolt were not established with certainty, and it seems to
me little credible that a popular class kept in total submission and unarmed and so deeply religious would
aggress the very strong ruling class of priests, formidable warriors and haughty nobility.
[…] And they worshipped him [Moctezuma] as a god prostrating themselves until he had passed; and I
want to tell what answer gave me an Indian to whom I asked about the physiognomy and look of
Moctezuma, for his stature and manners, and he replied: Father, I cannot lie to you nor tell you things
which I ignore, I have never seen his face. And as I asked him why? He said that if he had dared look at
him he would be dead as all the others who had been so impudent to look at him (Duran, 1995:I:467-468).
This notice concerning Moctezuma in the XVI century was possibly or probably in continuity with past
traditions of the powerful nobility in Mesoamerica. The poor would even less profane the dwellings of their gods,
and even if it had been a revolt against the ruling class they would have massacred the palaces and their lords but
not the temples.

22 ARNOLD LEBEUF
[…] I shall say what told me one of the conquerors, and it is that when the battle to win this land was over,
the marquis of the valley [Hernand Cortes] ordered that the Indians themselves climb [the temple] and
throw down the great Huitzilopochtli, and he certified that there was no Indian at all who would dare do
it neither under menaces nor caresses. And seeing that, the marquis ordered Gil Gonzales de Benavides,
the father of Alonzo de Avila to climb and to throw it down, so he climbed although he was opposed and
molested by the Indians and he threw it down, A deed that the old Indians considered of a very great
audacity and notable feat that a human being would dare to touch and put his hand on such a great god
as Huitzilopochtli (Duran, 1995:II:134).
Concerning my proposal of a ritual destruction in the year 830 AD, I received an interesting information from
Silvia Garza Tarazona (August 2012) who told me that some sort of philosophical or ideological revolution seems
to have taken place more or less around that year 830, because the relief decorations of the temple of the
Feathered Serpent had been then covered with lime stuccos as if someone had wanted to hide them. Would that
mean that after the massive destruction and sacrifices, when all the predictions of a catastrophic end of the world
would have failed and resulted in nothing and the gigantic potlatch proved useless, the survivors would have
decided to occult the reliefs of the temple dedicated to that false prediction?
THE END OF THE WORLD IN 4-CALLI

The date 4-Calli occupies the central place on the calendric cosmic equation on the façade of the Temple in
Xochicalco. But we also find it as a unique date, isolated, on a stone now in the Museum at Xochicalco.
Fig.18. 4-Calli, Xochicalco museum.
In the Museum, when I saw it first the caption under the stone with the date 4-Calli said: date of commemoration
for the end of the construction. I have no idea who might have decided of such a label neither do I of the reasons
which led to such an interpretation but find it really strange and very interesting, because this was the precise
date I had proposed for the ritual destruction and abandon of the site. In fact if the passage of the Sun on the node
took place on a day 11-Ozomatli in the year 830 AD, then 32 days later, we find the last inferior conjunction of
Venus, on the 21st of December 830. This date which falls on the winter solstice recalls the final date of the Mayan
Long Count on 21st of December 2012 as well as the last inferior conjunction of Venus on December 21st 2077
which can be deduced from the Dresden Codex.12 11-Ozomatli and 4-Calli are the two main dates on the facade
complex and are literally bound together by a rope.
End of Xochicalco 4-Calli 21.12.830 AD, JD. 2024566

End of the Long Count 4-Ahau 22.12.2012 AD, JD. 2456284
End of the table of Venus in the Dresden Codex 6-Ahau 21.12.2077 AD, JD. 2480025
It seems that the astronomer priests of ancient Mesoamerica wanted to associate the end of their “worlds”
with an inferior conjunction of Venus on a winter solstice. All these coincidences lead me to the conclusion that
the religious centre of Xochicalco was founded on a day 9-Ehecatl in the year 623 AD and that it was planned
from the beginning to be demolished and burned as a sacrifice offered to the gods, more especially to
Quetzalcoatl 208 years later on a day 4-Calli of the year 830 AD for the end of the great cycle of 5200 years which
finished then in their local tradition inherited from Teotihuacan.
It might seem very daring to propose that Xochicalco was built from the beginning to be destroyed after two
centuries as a magnificent sacrifice to the gods, but if not, how then can we explain that in the cartouches of the
12 A.Lebeuf, 2020.

dates 9-Ehecatl we see inside the flames the representation of a temple? What means this image of a burning
temple? If not the indication of a deliberate project at the very time of its construction? Or who knows? a
prophetic vision? -it is not too difficult to know the future when you create it yourself.
MASS SACRIFICE IN XOCHICALCO

In case there was a huge sacrifice of the monuments and riches there should also have been an important
sacrifice of human victims. Norberto Gonzales informed me that under the carbonized roofs fallen in one of the
main buildings were found a large quantity of bodies, as if they had been locked inside before setting the fire that
crushed the roof. This could correspond to a fragment reported by Michel Graulich in his chapter about the
different forms of sacrifices and ritual killing.
[…] Even more original is the sacrifice which consists of locking prisoners in a room or hall and collapse
the roof on them. Tezozomoc (c.100) mention it as one of the kinds of murdering of the Tlaxcaltecs after
the burning of the temple of Toci. Although incongruous and mentioned only by this source, the
information is particularly interesting when we consider the parallel we can draw with the Popol-Vuh of
the Quiche Maya, where 400 youths, equivalent to the 400 Mimixcoas or Huitznahuas are killed in the
same way by a giant and become the Pleyades. A death which alludes to the end of an era with the
collapsing of the celestial vault and he subsequent apparition of the first stars of a new era (Michel
Graulich, 2005: 307).
Of course, the fall of the sky is an expression of apocalypse, the end of a world, the reverse situation of the
creation when according to the mythology the world was created when the sky was raised and separated from
the earth by Quetzalcoatl 9-Ehecatl (Vienna Codex). And then we can understand better that the figure raising the
sky on the right panel of the temple is named 9-Ehecatl, that is Quetzalcoatl (see figure 10)13. A prayer to the god
to raise again the sky after the cosmic collapse.
The commentary by Graulich is of great value, A mass sacrifice of crushed victims under a roof reproduces
the death of the four hundred, that is to say innumerable victims at the end of one world and the beginning of
another. We find again the same context and meaning of mass sacrifices in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus
pinturas for the end of Tollan and the Toltecs and the start of Aztec domination. That is certainly interesting as we
know that both Xochicalco and Teotihuacan were identified as the mythic Tollan by several authors.
[…] And after four years an old woman, a natural of Tula, was going around distributing strips of paper
on sticks to every one of the inhabitants convincing them that they should prepare themselves because
they were going to die, and then all of them went to throw themselves on the stone where the Mexicas
were sacrificing (Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas)
Sahagun repeats the story and insists that the whole people became like mad.
[…] From then, an old Indian woman was going in a place called Chapultepecuitlapilco, or by the other
name of Uetzinco, selling some strips of paper and saying ;to the banners who is decided to die, then she
said : Buy me a small banner. And after buying the banner, they went where was the techcatl stone, and
there, they killed them, and there was no one to refuse, and they were like mad (Sahagún, Códice
Florentino, III: X: 18v-19r; Historia General, 2000: 320).
What is described here is a mass sacrificial suicide of a crowd taken by a delirious madness after receiving
signs of their inevitable death and orders to comply. And then comes the end of one world and the birth of
another. We find such behaviours elsewhere in Mesoamerican sources, and not only.
EPILOGUE, THE XHOSA

For the preparation of this paper I consulted the book of David Webster. The author offers a review of
different hypotheses presented to explain the abandon of Mayan cities. Only three pages (234–236) are dedicated
to the possibility of ritual destructions under the title “Ideological pathology”. He starts this paragraph with a
very important text which I reproduce here extensively:
[…] In the late summer of 1856 the Xhosa, a Bantu-speaking people of southern Africa, began methodically
to kill their cattle, horses, goats, sheep, and fowl. They also consumed or threw away all the grain in their
storage bins and stopped preparations to plant new crops. They did all this after listening to the
prophecies of a young girl named Nonquawuse, who claimed to have received messages from two dead
ancestors a few months earlier near a deep pool in the sacred Gxara river gorge. In her vision, these
ancestors directed that all livestock and food should be destroyed, and that new houses, corrals, and grain
13 A very similar venusian figure is lifting the sky also on the Piedra del Palacio de Xochicalco in the Museum of Cuernavaca.

24 ARNOLD LEBEUF
bins should be built. If these instructions were faithfully carried out, they assured, the world would be
reborn. After a great storm and two days of darkness, the earth would disgorge an endless supply of
immortal cattle, defeat the enemies of the Xhosa, and the dead ancestors would live again. Some Xhosa
were sceptical of this prophecy, but once it was accepted by a number of influential chiefs the promise of
such a profound renewal proved irresistible to most people. When several auspicious deadlines passed
and the ancestors failed to appear, Xhosa believers killed the last remnants of their flocks. After the sun
rose and set as usual on 18 February 1857, the final appointed day, the Xhosa finally realized the depth of
their collective delusion, but it was too late. Untold thousands of people starved to death. For those who
survived, Xhosa culture was broken by “...the greatest self-inflicted immolation of a people in history
(Webster, 2002: 234).
This text is exemplar of the mass aberrations which may appear in times of crisis, and we have also known in
modern times collective suicides of members of millenarian sects in order to be renewed or reborn in a better
world (Jonestown 1976; Fribourg 1994; San Diego 1997; Kananga 2000; Delhi 2018), and we could collect others,
always associated to religious fanatic fear of cataclysms and hope of a happy renewal. It is very interesting to
observe that the collective delirious hopes do not stop when the prophecy does not realize, but on the contrary,
people think that the only solution to accomplish the promises of renewal and high felicity is to sacrifice even
more, everything, in a frenzy, to the last head of cattle, to the last seed. Desperate individuals or society can enter
in such a vicious circle of negative escalation, in a fatal bolting. This general madness works as an addiction to
game, when one has already lost so much that he cannot leave the gambling table until totally ruined. It costed
already so much that it is impossible to leave it. This logic works in many different social situations and is
frequently a powerful instrument of domination.
Personally I am not convinced that ritual destructions can explain the abandon of Maya cities, principally
because the Mayas used to leave very many inscriptions of their political, religious or social life and history, so
that among so many inscriptions it would be very strange not to find any hint or mention of events of such an
importance, and besides, the Mayan cities were not all abandoned at the same time although they used the same
system of chronology and cosmology. But I think the situation is different in central Mexico. Maybe various
factors of anguish such as natural catastrophes, exhaustion of resources, excessive bureaucracy, repeated
invasions, epidemics, could only confirm that the end of era was really approaching as had been acknowledged
ever. These catastrophic ends of cycles were constantly present in Mesoamerican mythology and worldview.
Many sources indicate this permanent fear of successive destructions and renewals of the worlds and empires,
and heroic death was always a promise of future felicity in a new world or the other world. All that would only
reinforce the conviction of the leaders of the necessity of offering all they could to the gods in hope of their partial
clemency, a stunning potlatch. It seems to me that such a possibility should be kept in mind especially because
the iconography, archaeological evidence of fires and systematic destructions and dates found in Xochicalco in
this respect are so meaningful.
Returning to Augustin Le Plongeon, his ideas are certainly fantastic, and he has generously offered to serious
scholars easy occasions of mockery, but imagination is part of intelligence and certainly a basic condition of
scientific investigation. Xochicalco does not relate the sinking of Atlantis nor the destruction of Mu, but Le
Plongeon was a genuine investigator, his photographs are a treasury and his intuition concerning the reliefs of the
Temple in Xochicalco are, in my opinion, very lucid in some way. He claimed those reliefs were describing the
apocalyptic end of one world and that the whole monument was a mausoleum to this catastrophe. He might well
have been the first to understand the meaning of this monument.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am thankful to Jesus Mora for so many fruitful discussions and his critical reading of the manuscript of this
paper.

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INDEX

HUMAN HERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE. CONTEMPORARY DECLINATIONS

Olimpia Niglio, editor

THE END OF XOCHICALCO, A RITUAL DESTRUCTION?

ANCIENT EGYPT, SPANISH CROWN, AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

THE DESERT AS AN IDEA. A DECOLONIAL READING

CONSTRAINTS AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES ON MEXICO’ S LANDSCAPE CULTURE

KEYS TO GOOD DESIGN FOR A HUMANE, INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE CITY

THE ENCINO’S GARDEN: CORE OF COMMUNITY LIFE OF A TRADITIONAL

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MINING LANDSCAPE,

THE QUALITY OF FRAGILITY

LANDSCAPE IS CULTURAL BY NATURE

THE LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY. SCENES OF THE COMMEMORATION

LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE LANDSCAPE

PHOTO CAPTIONS 139

HUMAN HERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

NORIKO INOUE AND CÉSAR AUGUSTO VELANDIA SILVA

Vision without Action is Empty. Action without Vision is Blind.

TOWARDS A NEW CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM

RESONATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

ESEMPI DI ARCHITETTURA, 2021, VOL.8, N.1

TOWARDS AN INTERCULTURAL HUMAN HERITAGE

César Augusto Velandia Silva

ESEMPI DI ARCHITETTURA, 2021, VOL.8, N.1

THE END OF XOCHICALCO, A RITUAL DESTRUCTION?

Accepted: October 30, 2020

Keywords: Mexico, Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Cosmology.

“Most amusing still are the assertions of Augustin

THE TEMPLE OF THE FEATHERED SERPENT IN XOCHICALCO

Fig.2. (left), The date 9-Ehecatl.

ESEMPI DI ARCHITETTURA, 2021, VOL.8, N.1

ESEMPI DI ARCHITETTURA, 2021, VOL.8, N.1

THE OBSESSION WITH TIME

ESEMPI DI ARCHITETTURA, 2021, VOL.8, N.1

4 11 See the Leyenda de los Soles, in Codice Chimalpopoca, 1845.

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THE NEW FIRE CEREMONY

*= Venus conjunctions with the sun (inferior or superior).

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16 II 4366 BC Venus 0 N.34

THE DATE 9-EHECATL

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THE YEAR 1-ACATL

Julian day 1948625; 9-Ehécatl; 20.I.623; Node 1; Venus -31.

THE YEAR BEARER 6-ACATL

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11-OZOMATLI AND 4-CALLI

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9-Ehécatl JD 1948625 20. I. 623 Node 1 Venus -31

11-Ozomatli JD 2024534 19. XI. 830 Nodo 1 Venus -32

Fig.17. Representation of an eclipse, Xochicalco.

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THE COLLAPSE OF TEOTIHUACAN

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DATATION OF THE FOUNDATION OF XOCHICALCO.

10Comunicación personal; Laura E. Beramendi-Orosco et al.2009.

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THE END OF XOCHICALCO

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