Collapse and Burning of Teotihuacan

Date

c. 550 CE

Category

Social & demographic

Region

Valley of Mexico, central Mexico (Mesoamerica)

Era

Post-Classical / Medieval

Significance

Around 550 CE the great Mesoamerican metropolis of Teotihuacan, located in the Valley of Mexico northeast of present-day Mexico City, entered a sharp and irreversible decline marked by a deliberate, large-scale burning of its monumental core.

Archaeological and archaeomagnetic evidence shows that more than a hundred structures along the Avenue of the Dead were torched and that sculptures and elite palaces such as Xalla were smashed, with the destruction concentrated selectively on civic and ruling-class buildings rather than ordinary dwellings. Because no traces of foreign conquest are evident, most scholars interpret the event as an internal uprising or coup against the city's governing apparatus, possibly aggravated by prolonged drought, famine, resource depletion, and the climatic downturn of 535-536. At its zenith around 450 CE Teotihuacan had been the largest city in the Americas, home to perhaps 100,000-150,000 people and a dominant cultural and commercial power across Mesoamerica. Although a reduced population lingered for another two centuries, the burning ended Teotihuacan's regional supremacy and helped open the fragmented Epiclassic era from which rival centres such as Xochicalco, Cholula, and Tula later rose. The collapse remains one of the most debated events in pre-Columbian history, with dating estimates ranging from roughly 550 to 600 CE.

Empires active in c. 550 CE

• Sassanid Empire
  224 CE – 651 CE
• Kingdom of Funan
  50 CE – 550 CE
• Byzantine Empire
  330 CE – 1453 CE
• Classic Maya Civilization
  250 CE – 900 CE
• Kingdom of Aksum
  100 CE – 940 CE
• Hephthalite Empire
  440 CE – 560 CE

Related social & demographic events

• The Plague of Justinian, the first recorded bubonic pandemic
  541–549 CE
• Collapse of the Classic Maya lowland city-states
  c. 800–900 CE
• Zanj Rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate
  869-883 CE
• Banu Hilal Migration Arabises the Maghreb
  c. 1050 onward (11th century)
• Rise of Cahokia, the largest city of Mississippian North America
  c. 1050 CE
• The Black Death sweeps Europe, North Africa and the Middle East
  1347–1351 CE

Further reading

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The wider story

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

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