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Secret At The Heart Of A Pyramid!

For more than 100 days, they dug. Working 15 hours a day, they tunneled farther and farther through the heat and swirling dust until...presto! Beneath the layers of rubble inside an ancient pyramid they hit pay dirt: a hidden burial room.

This was one creepy room. A human skeleton was resting in a seated position on the floor. At least 15 double-edge stone knives lay there as well. The skeletons of two young jungle cats, possibly jaguars, were buried amid pieces of a wooden cage. Bones from seven large birds were covered in dirt.

This mysterious burial room in the Pyramid of the Moon was discovered last October by scientists working in the ancient city of Teotihuacán (Tay-o-tee-wah-can) in Mexico. Now those scientists and other experts must figure out who built the city and its pyramids and whether there are more secrets to be found.

A City's Puzzling Past
The giant pyramids and avenues of Teotihuacán have mystified people for centuries. In the 1500s, the Aztecs ruled a powerful empire that included Teotihuacán, but the city and its pyramids are much older. The Aztecs believed that the city was created by gods. (Teotihuacán means Place of the Gods.) They also believed that Teotihuacán was where the sun and moon were created. That's why the city's two main pyramids are named Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon.

Today we know that Teotihuacán was built almost 2,000 years ago. It was the first great city of Mesoamerica, an area that includes Mexico and Central America. At the height of its power in A.D. 500, Teotihuacán was home to more than 150,000 people.

Just who were those people? Experts are still trying to figure that out. That is the Pyramid of the Moon, are so important to researchers. "No one has ever found a burial of this richness intact at Teotihuacán before," says George Cowgill, a scientist from Arizona State University who is studying the site.

The pyramid's contents have already provided some clues about Teotihuacán's founders. For one thing, the findings support the idea that they sacrificed animals and even humans as gifts to their gods, just as the nearby Mayan people did. The human skeleton found in the burial room had its hand behind its back, suggesting that the person may have been tied up and then killed. The young wildcats and large birds may have been sacrificed too.

Another site, found 10 years ago, contained the skeletons of 150 soldiers. They were armed with stone-tipped spears as well as other weapons. Cowgill says of Teotihuacán's founders, "Clearly, warfare was important to them." But, he adds, "it may only have been symbolic. Most of the population of his city were farmers."

Peeling A Pyramid
There are still very few clues about the daily lives of those farmers. One problem is that experts have not yet figured out how to read the ancient writings found in Teotihuacán. They are written in hieroglyphics, a picture language.

Researchers studying the Pyramid of the Moon hope that the site will produce more information about its builders. Because the pyramid was built like an onion, in layer upon layer, much of it has yet to be explored. Explains Cowgill: "They would build a small pyramid, then build a larger one over it and a third one after that." As he and other experts continue peeling away those layers, the secrets of Teotihuacán may finally be unwrapped.

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