• A World Heritage site always attracts a lot of attention. Such archaeological sites are viewed to materially represent irreplaceable ‘heritage’ on a global scale and are defined and protected through the United Nations’s UNESCO declarations (eg. UNESCO 1988).
• Teotihuacan is emblematic: Replete with two monumental pyramids (the Pyramid of the Sun being the 3rd largest Pyramidal structure in the world) set amidst the ruins of a once densely populated, urbanized city (the first on such a scale in Mesoamerica), “Teotihuacan”, or the “place where divinity comes into being” as the Aztec later identified it, has attracted, both historically and contemporaneously, a broad range of interests.
• As most of us may personally attest to in visiting these world monuments, such interests run the gamut from:
• the archaeological

• to new age spiritualism.

• With its material complexity Teotihuacan has historically been the venue for both groundbreaking archaeological projects (Millon 1964) and celestial celebrations.

• Similar to other prominent archaeological sites around the world (eg. Bender 1998, Carmichael 1994, Castañeda 1996, Hodder 2004), Teotihuacan looms large in 'new age' or spiritual practices and references.

• Aside from a few anthropologists or social archaeologists, inadequate attention has been paid to these sites as material networks of the various associations. This is especially surprising at Teotihuacan, given that it has been a cornerstone of 'myth building' from prehispanic pilgrimages and oracles to 20th-century identity politics and continuing today (Boone 2000, Ruiz 1997, Vasconcelos 1925).

• What are these associations? More work has been done on prehispanic and historical associations, yet Teotihuacan is at the center of contemporary involvements - on the national, 'transnational' and 'techno-global' scale.

Contemporary Associations

And Heritage For All! . . . But What is Heritage?