[NYTr] Aztec leader's tomb found

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Milt Shapiro (mexnews)

AP- Aug 4, 2007

Aztec leader's tomb found

By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press

He was emperor at the apogee of the Aztec civilization, the last to 
complete his rule before the Spanish Conquest. But Ahuizotl's tomb 
has never been found. No Aztec ruler's funeral chamber ever has. But 
Mexican archaeologists believe that has finally changed.

Using ground-penetrating radar, they have detected underground 
chambers that could contain the remains of Ahuizotl, who ruled the 
Aztecs when Columbus landed in the New World.

The find could provide an extraordinary window into Aztec 
civilization at its peak. Ahuizotl (ah-WEE-zoh-tuhl), was an 
empire-builder who extended the Aztecs' reach as far as Guatemala.

Accounts written by Spanish priests suggest the area was used by the 
Aztecs to cremate and bury their rulers. But no tomb of an Aztec 
ruler has ever been found, in part because the Spanish conquerors 
built their own city atop the Aztec's ceremonial center, leaving 
behind colonial structures too historically valuable to remove for 
excavations.

One of those colonial buildings was so damaged in a 1985 earthquake 
that it had to be torn down, eventually giving experts their first 
chance to examine the site off Mexico City's Zocalo plaza, between 
the Metropolitan Cathedral and the ruins of the Templo Mayor pyramid.

Archaeologists told The Associated Press that they have located what 
appears to be a six-foot-by-six-foot entryway into the tomb about 15 
feet below ground. The passage is filled with water, rocks and mud, 
forcing workers to dig delicately while suspended from slings. Pumps 
work to keep the water level down.

"We are doing it very, very slowly ... because the responsibility is 
very great and we want to register everything," said Leonardo Lopez 
Lujan, the lead government archaeologist on the project. "It's a 
totally new situation for us, and we don't know exactly what it will 
be like down there."

As early as this fall, they hope to enter the inner chambers ? a 
damp, low-ceilinged space ? and discover the ashes of Ahuizotl, who 
was likely cremated on a funeral pyre in 1502.

By that time, Columbus had already landed in the New World. But the 
Aztecs' first contact with Europeans came 17 years later, in 1519, 
when Hernan Cortes and his band of conquistadors marched into the 
Mexico Valley and took hostage Ahuizotl's successor, his nephew 
Montezuma.

Ahuizotl's son Cuauhtemoc (kwow-TAY-mock) took over from Montezuma 
and led the last resistance to the Spaniards in the battle for Mexico 
City in 1521. He was later taken prisoner and killed. Like Montezuma, 
his burial place is unknown.

Because no Aztec royal tomb has ever been found, the archaeologists 
are literally digging into the unknown. Radar indicates the tomb has 
up to four chambers, and scientists think they will find a 
constellation of elaborate offerings to the gods on the floor.

"He must have been buried with solemn ceremony and rich offerings, 
like vases, ornaments ... and certainly some objects he personally 
used," said Luis Alberto Martos, director of archaeological studies 
at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

The tomb's curse ? water ? may also be its blessing. Lopez Lujan said 
the constant temperature of the pH-neutral water in the flooded 
chambers, together with the lack of oxygen, discourages decomposition 
of materials like wood and bone that have been found at other digs 
around the pyramid, which was all but destroyed in the Conquest.

"This would be quite an important find for Aztec archaeology," said 
Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University who is 
not connected to the dig. "It would be tremendously important because 
it would be direct information about kingship, burial and the empire 
that is difficult to come by otherwise."

All signs found so far point to Ahuizotl. The site lies directly 
below a huge, recently discovered stone monolith carved with a 
representation of Tlaltecuhtli (tlahl-tay-KOO-tlee), the Aztec god of 
the earth.

Depicted as a woman with huge claws and a stream of blood flowing 
into her mouth as she squats to give birth, Tlaltecuhtli was believed 
to devour the dead and then give them new life. The god was so 
fearsome that Aztecs normally buried her depictions face down in the 
earth. However, this one is face-up.

In the claw of her right foot, the god holds a rabbit and 10 dots, 
indicating the date "10 Rabbit" ? 1502, the year of Ahuizotl's death.

"Our hypothesis is precisely that this is probably the tomb of 
Ahuizotl," Lopez Lujan said.

Any artifacts linked to Ahuizotl would bring tremendous pride to 
Mexico. The country has sought unsuccessfully to recover Aztec 
artifacts like the feather-adorned "shield of Ahuizotl" and the 
"Montezuma headdress" from the Ethnology Museum in Vienna, Austria.

"Imagine it ? this wasn't just any high-ranking man. The Aztecs were 
the most powerful society of their time before the arrival of the 
Spaniards," Martos said. "That's why Ahuizotl's tomb down there is so 
important."

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.