Archaelogoists have found a circular platform dedicated to wind god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl and eight sets of human remains under the site of a demolished supermarket in the Tlatelolco area of Mexico City.
Archaeologists working in Mexico City have uncovered a circular temple built more than 650 years ago to worship a god of wind.
It was excavated at a site discovered two years ago when a mid-20th-century supermarket was demolished. The circular platform, about 36ft in diameter and 4ft tall, now sits in the shadow of a shopping mall under construction.
The site is believed to have been built to worship the god of wind, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, and the plans are to preserve it and make it visible to the public with a large viewing window.
What archaeologists initially found below the old supermarket shards of pottery and human remains was expected, said Pedro Francisco Sánchez Nava, national archaeology coordinator for Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute.
But deeper down they were surprised to find the temple, which offers another example of how the Mexica-Tlatelolca people worshipped one of their principal deities, Sánchez said. Offerings found included an infant with no signs of trauma, bird bones, obsidian, maguey cactus spines and ceramic figurines of monkeys and duck bills.