Reverential Termination of Sun Pyramid Cave, Teotihuacan - Round 2

Summary

The predominant view is that the paucity of material remains from the cave under the Sun Pyramid is attributable to looting, often described as exhaustive. This paper disputes that speculation, based on lack of evidence and, more convincingly, on a paucity of material remains from contexts that could not possibly have been looted any time after Teotihuacanos applied concrete to the cave in the mid-third century CE. I present evidence for timing, termination ritual, sealing of termination contexts, and paucity of material remains from sealed contexts to argue that the dearth is explainable as part of a ritual of reverential termination.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Emerging from the Place of Darkness: Subterranean Archaeology in Mesoamerica

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14646