hi all here's part 22 from the second series from my "Fat lad on world tour" in this one i go and see probably the best and bigest Ruins in mexico that is EL Tajin.....
El Tajín is a pre-Columbian archeological site in southern Mexico and is one of the largest and most important cities of the Classic era of Mesoamerica. A part of the Classic Veracruz culture, El Tajín flourished from 600 to 1200 AD and during this time numerous temples, palaces, ballcourts, and pyramids were built.From the time the city fell, in 1230, to 1785, no European seems to have known of its existence, until a government inspector chanced upon the Pyramid of the Niches.
Chronology studies at Tajín and nearby sites show that the area has been occupied at least since 5600 BCE and show how nomadic hunters and gatherers eventually became sedentary farmers, building more complex societies prior to the rise of the city of El Tajin.The pace of this societal progression became more rapid with the rise of the neighboring Olmec civilization around 1150 BCE, although the Olmecs were never here in great numbers. It is unclear who built the city. ome argue in favor of the Totonacs and the Xapaneca; however, there is a significant amount of evidence that the area was populated by the Huastec at the time the settlement was founded in the 1st century CE Monumental construction started soon after and by 600 CE, El Tajín was a city.The rapid rise of Tajin was due to its strategic position along the old Mesoamerican trade routes. It controlled the flow of commodities, both exports such as vanilla and imports from other locations in what is now Mexico and Central America. From the early centuries, objects from Teotihuacan are abundant.
In 1785, an official by the name of Diego Ruiz stumbled upon the Pyramid of the Niches, whilst looking for clandestine tobacco plantings breaching the royal monopoly in this isolated area rarely visited by the authorities. He made a drawing of the pyramid and reported his find to a publication called Gaceta de Mexico. He claimed the natives had kept the place secret.The publication of the pyramid's existence in the Gaceta influenced academic circles in New Spain and Europe, attracting the attention of antiquarians José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez and Ciriaco Gonazlez Carvajal, who wrote about it. It also gained the interest of several academics, who compared the pyramid with the constructions of ancient Rome.The pyramid was further advertised by Italian Pietro Márquez in Europe and by Alexander von Humboldt.
El Tajín was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1992, because of its historical significance and architecture and engineering.“Its architecture, which is unique in Mesoamerica, is characterized by elaborate carved reliefs on the columns and frieze. The 'Pyramid of the Niches', a masterpiece of ancient Mexican and American architecture, reveals the astronomical and symbolic significance of the buildings. The site is one of the most important in Mexico and the most important in the state of Veracruz
The Pyramid of the Niches
This pyramid has as a number of names, including El Tajín, Pyramid of Papantla, Pyramid of the Seven Stories and the Temple of the Niches. It has become the focus of the site because of its unusual design and good state of preservation. It was prominent in ancient times as well. A large quantity of sculpture was recovered from this pyramid. The building is mostly constructed of carefully cut and crafted flagstones, the largest of which is estimated to be about eight metric tons in weight. The stones, especially around the niches are fitted together as to need a minimum amount of lime and earth mortar. The structure originally was covered in stucco which served as the base for paint.
The pyramid has seven stories. Each of these consists of a sloping base wall called a talud and a vertical wall called a tablero, which was fairly common in Mesoamerica. What is unusual about this construction and others in the city are the addition of decorative niches with the top capped by what Jose Garcia Payon called a "flying cornice", a triangular overhang. The stones are arranged in controlled lines and delicate proportions. Originally the structure was painted a dark red with the niches in black intended to deepen the shadows of the recessed niches. Niches are also found underneath the stairway along the east face, which indicates that the stairway was a later addition. The niches on the original structure, not counting those on the later stairway, total 365, the solar year. At the top of the pyramid there were tablets framed by grotesque serpent-dragons.[