The Aztec City Ruin of Tlatelolco

Plaza Of The Three Cultures

 

A short visit to a site of great importance to Mexico and its people for multiple reasons. You can see the Aztec ceremonial city center of what once was Tlatelolco, a city that vied for prominence with Tenochtitlan, centered around the center of Mexico City, you can see the site of the earliest Catholic church, now topped by the newer, 17th Century church, built, as I immediately noticed, from the missing stones of the old Aztec pyramids and temples, and in the surrounding area, modern apartment and government buildings and a square, infamous for the killing of protesters in 1968. And then Mexico went on to host the 1968 Summer Olympic Games.

 

 

 

 

Part of the calendar symbols that decorate the astronomical temple
What is clearly evident, as at the templo mayor of Tenochtitlan, is the way the temple was enlarge over the centuries.

 

A replica of one of dozens of burial sites discovered here

 

Archaeological studies contnue and probably will, for decades to come
The Franciscan church, Igleasia de Santiago. No question about it, the missing parts of the pyramids and temples are right there, in front of us. The original church was commisioned by Cortés in 1524, and built in 1609, later restored.

 

 

 

The monument dedicated to some of the shooting victims of 1968. There had been allegedly about 250, but only now, a more secure national government is releasing more formerly classified documents, so the list is expected to get longer.
A mural that depicts the president of Mexico at the time of the shooting, wearing a white glove. The glove was the symbol by federal agents mixed in with the protesters, to be put on and raised, the moment the shooting began, to keep them from being targeted.

 

And here, the reason for the name, Plaza de las Tres Culturas

 

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