Teotihuacan rises as a great city and builds the Pyramid of the Sun
- Date
- c. 100 CE
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Mexico (Valley of Mexico)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
In the Valley of Mexico, the planned metropolis of Teotihuacan grew explosively in the first two centuries CE into one of the largest cities in the world, eventually housing perhaps 100,000–125,000 people.
Its monumental core was laid out along the broad Avenue of the Dead, anchored by the colossal Pyramid of the Sun — built largely during the Tzacualli phase around 100 CE — rising about 66 metres and containing roughly 765,000 cubic metres of fill, together with the Pyramid of the Moon and the Ciudadela with its Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Teotihuacan's grid plan, apartment compounds, obsidian industry and far-reaching trade and ideological influence reached across Mesoamerica, including the distant Maya lowlands. The city's builders left no deciphered written name for themselves; later Aztecs, awed by the ruins, called it 'the place where the gods were created.' Teotihuacan exemplifies the urban and political sophistication of Classic-era Mesoamerica.
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Empires active in c. 100 CE
- Han Dynasty202 BCE – 220 CE
- Roman Empire27 BCE – 476 CE
- Parthian Empire247 BCE – 224 CE
- Xiongnu Confederation209 BCE – 93 CE
- Kan Kingdom (El Mirador)300 BCE – 150 CE
- Indo-Greek Kingdom180 BCE – 10 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Augustus founds the Principate (First Settlement)16 January 27 BCE
- Assassination of Julius Caesar (the Ides of March)15 March 44 BCE
- Wang Mang nationalises land under the Xin dynastyAD 9
- Qin unification of China and the First Emperor221 BCE
- Ardashir I defeats the Parthians at Hormozdgan and founds the Sasanian Empire28 April 224 CE
- Tribunate and murder of Tiberius Gracchus133 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Best-selling reappraisal of the sophisticated societies of the pre-Columbian Americas.
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