Maps for Modernity
Prior to the 1940’s Mexican archaeology had remained largely a-theoretical, not actively participating in international currents of thought (Bernal 1980). A period, as the Mexican archaeology historian Robles Gárcia (2007:1) characterizes it, concerned with “production for domestic consumption” due to a great confidence in domestic accomplishments. This period of archaeology, falling shortly after the Mexican Revolution, was bound up with nationalism and a general preoccupation with all things not foreign (Bernal 1980, Robles Gárcia 2007:ch.2). But by the time of TMP, the age of ‘historical particularism’ of the Mexican School of Archaeology was eclipsed by emerging interest in Marxist and environmental determinism ideas (Olivé Negrete 1988, Robles Gárcia 2007). The influx of these new currents of ideas complemented the explicit goal for the TMP (Millon 1973a:x): to utilize the best cartographic techniques available to design a ‘baseline map’ for future scientific studies of Teotihuacan, particularly studies of urbanization. Moreover, these studies would foster comparative studies of urbanization on an international scale.
The goals for previous maps of the site, antedating the new international orientation of Mexican archaeology, were much more modest by comparison. In formulating his map, Millon (1973a:xi) built upon the precedent of two previous maps of Teotihuacan. Romón Almaraz had produced a map of the ancient metropolis in 1865 utilizing, for the first time, instruments of scientific precision (Almaraz 1865: 348, cited in Ruiz 1997:188). This map (Figure 4.6) was entitled: “plan of the pyramids of San Juan de Teotihuacán, accomplished by the Scientific Commission of the Valley of Mexico engineers” [Plano de las Pirámides de San Juan Teotihuacán, levantado por los ingenieros de la Comisión Científica del Valle de Mexico]. Almaraz and his team made several minor excavations (some tlateles), but otherwise he restricted most of his observations to simply what he encountered in its present condition [que me ocuparía solo de refirir cómo se encontraban las cosas al presente] (cited in Ruiz 1997:194). These comments concerned the various dimension of the city’s monuments, distances between the Pyramids of the Moon, Sun and the ciudadela well as accurate latitude and longitude coordinates for the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun and the ciudadela (ibid.:188,199).
Manuel Gamio undertook a remarkable study of the entire Valley of Teotihuacan that was published in several volumes in 1922 (Gamio 1922). Remarkable because it was prescient of more recent inter-disciplinarian collaboration and of the theory behind ‘anthropological archaeology’. Gamio conducts an exhaustive demographic, ethnographic and historical survey of the contemporary population, as well as one of the formative excavations and nearly complete reconstruction of the ciudadela at Teotihuacan.
This combination of ethnography and archaeology at Teotihuacan has not been reproduced. As already mentioned, the early work of Millon (1957) on the valley’s irrigations systems, Diehl’s (1972) survey of the socio-economic organization of the contemporary population, as well as unpublished accounts of informal, informant interviews concerning the oral history of the site’s many caves (Manzanilla 2006) continue the tradition of Gamio’s formative work. The work of this ‘father of modern archaeology at Teotihuacan’, however, had a particular focus which informed his goals for the study.
The intention behind Gamio’s (as well as the equally important work of Alfonso Caso at Monte Albán) focus on integrating the past-present/indio-Mexican society was attributable to his Nationalism (especially Gamio 1916). Yet for archaeology, their early work set a precedent that distinguished Mexican archaeology from the ongoing endeavors of foreign archaeologists, perhaps marking it as more distinctively 'Mexican'; and which, though the paradigm was not necessarily duplicated by subsequent Mexican archaeologists (Olivé Negrete 1988, Politis 2003), did nonetheless attenuate the underlying division between the contemporary populations of Mexico and Mexican antiquities.
Figure 4.6: The Almaraz Map (from Matos Moctezuma 2003:32).
The large scale of the map (Figure 4.6), which essentially covered (what would later be determined by the TMP) the entire extant of the site except for the southern portions, precluded the inclusion of these measurements on the map itself. This means that the map, despite being the first accurate portrayal of the area in terms of scale and dimension, is only of impressionistic quality. It is interesting to note, however, that Almaraz includes the major roads of the era, as well as the modern town of San Juan de Teotihuacán to the west of the ciudadela (lower left of map). Yet no other reference is made in the written account regarding the contemporary population. Indeed, Alamaraz’s remarks accompanying the map are limited, and the only indication of his goals for the commission’s map come from a quote suggesting the need for further detailed measurements of the monuments in order to conduct a “serious study”. “The absolute need of measurements to make profitable investigations that would serve as a base to form a serious study. . .” [La falta absoluta de medios para hacer proveshosas investigacionces que pudieran servir de base, para formar un estudio serio. . .] (ibid:194).
Such a goal for more detailed measurements of Teotihuacan’s features, presaging Millon’s own goal in making the TMP map a hundred years later, would have to wait until 1919. And Almaraz’s map, perhaps because of the lack of detailed measurements of features on the map and the lack of recorded or physically permanent system of datum points with which to replicate his measurements and augment his map with additional measurements, was little, if at all, utilized. So while the map may have been an ‘accurate representation’, exploiting (for the first time) cartographic methods and equipment, its inutility for subsequent research at the site relegated it to being simply a sign post on the road to Millon’s TMP.
Aside from two other maps made by Charnay between 1857-1882 and Becerril in 1886, both of which are of hand drafted and impressionistic quality, no other precise map utilizing cartographic equipment would be undertaken until Igancio Marquina (Figure 4.7). Marquina’s map included only the central portion of the site, already denominated (since Batres’ work of the previous decades) the “Archaeolgoical Zone” and roughly approximated the current boundaries of the fenced INAH property (Perimeter A) (Marquina 1922, cited in Ruiz 1997:364). The map is distinguished from all previous maps, including that of Almaraz, in its topographical quality. Rather than just denoting the outlines of the major features of the monuments, which had previously granted a diagrammatic appearance to the maps, Marquina took elevation measurements of the various features and the surrounding topography. These contour lines, much more closely resembling the TMP map, offer the first visualization of the monuments in the environmental context, and also indicate the location of possible features not already excavated or reconstructed. This grants the map a predictive quality which prior maps lacked. The implication is that the map might be utilized directly in conducting further exploratory research. Additionally, Marquina provides the locations of his datum points from where he took measurements from, and includes a (limited) legend in the lower right denoting where previous excavations had taken place. Finally, while not included on the map, the text accompanying Marquina’s map indicate the scale of the map (1mm = 1 meter) (ibid.:364).
Figure 4.7: Marquina’s map of 1919 (from Matos Moctezuma 2003:33).
All of these qualities granted Marquina’s map greater usefulness, both in making his own interpretations and for later projects. While many his measurements and geographical coordinates replicate those of Almaraz, especially his latitude and longitude numbers (ibid.:364), the greater inclusion detail on the map capacitated Marquina to identify some of the salient spatial relationships of Teotihuacan which are still the focus of archaeological discussion. Among these observations made from the map, Marquina notes the symmetry of the building dimensions as well as their coordinated distributions along the east side of the avenida (here at the bottom) (ibid.). Though not spurned on to discuss urban planning at any detail, he does identify and discuss the ‘symmetry’ of the overall layout of this central portion, and the bisecting east-west and north-south axes (the avenida).
Finally, Marquina’s map also begins to take on the mercurial quality of the TMP map, with the inter-collating of collated maps of particular features at larger scale. He includes in his text, the addition of several, more detailed maps of the ciudadela, consisting of various phases in the excavations of that complex being conducted by Manuel Gamio (e.g. ibid.;373, 377, 389). While these are not as fungible with the overall map as Millon’s TMP map would be with subsequent large scale maps because they lack common identifiable points of reference or grid units, they do rudimentarily grant Marquina’s map some of the key qualities discussed above.
Marquina’s stated goal was to record the Archaeological Zone with precision and “with the object to make apparent all classes of detail” [con objeto de hacer aparecer todo clase de detalles] (ibid.:364). The greater functionality of the this more mercurial map was attested to by its use and elaboration in the first major comprehensive project to be undertaken in the Teotihuacan Valley.
Manuel Gamio undertook a remarkable study of the entire Valley of Teotihuacan that was published in several volumes in 1922 (Gamio 1922). Remarkable because it was prescient of more recent inter-disciplinarian collaboration and of the theory behind ‘anthropological archaeology’. Gamio conducts an exhaustive demographic, ethnographic and historical survey of the contemporary population, as well as one of the formative excavations and nearly complete reconstruction of the ciudadela at Teotihuacan.
This combination of ethnography and archaeology at Teotihuacan has not been reproduced. As already mentioned, the early work of Millon (1957) on the valley’s irrigations systems, Diehl’s (1972) survey of the socio-economic organization of the contemporary population, as well as unpublished accounts of informal, informant interviews concerning the oral history of the site’s many caves (Manzanilla 2006) continue the tradition of Gamio’s formative work. The work of this ‘father of modern archaeology at Teotihuacan’, however, had a particular focus which informed his goals for the study.
The intention behind Gamio’s (as well as the equally important work of Alfonso Caso at Monte Albán) focus on integrating the past-present/indio-Mexican society was attributable to his Nationalism (especially Gamio 1916). Yet for archaeology, their early work set a precedent that distinguished Mexican archaeology from the ongoing endeavors of foreign archaeologists, perhaps marking it as more distinctively 'Mexican'; and which, though the paradigm was not necessarily duplicated by subsequent Mexican archaeologists (Olivé Negrete 1988, Politis 2003), did nonetheless attenuate the underlying division between the contemporary populations of Mexico and Mexican antiquities which characterizes.
This precedent of re-integrating the indios with 'the past' was duplicated by Caso with his concern to showcase the archaeological 'masterpieces' of Mexico as evidence of the indios capability of civilization (e.g. 1938). This unique non-division between past and present cultures of Teotihaucan, of treating the modern populations as continuation of the ‘archaeological culture’ of the region, while also antedating many recent arguments in ‘multivocal’ or stakeholder archaeology, was due the larger context of Mexican cultural politics. 'The problem' of lo indigena in post-Revolutionary Mexico was the influential perception of the indigenous populations or indios to be intransigently locked in the pre-Modern. This was the reasoning for why the indios posed a blockade to the modernising project of Mexico that accelerated (again) after the Revolution (Aguirre Beltrán 1967, Nugent 2000). The concern by the intelligentsia and political officials at the time was to modernize. Therefore, the ‘indigenista culture’ (the population majority of the new nation) needed to be studied in order to propose practical mechanisms by which they could be ‘brought to speed’, or integrated into a modern Mexican society (Gamio 1916, Vasconcelos 1925).
The driving goals for Gamio’s project was “1st - To know the conditions of property, natural production, artificial production and the habitability of the territory comprised in the Valley of Teotihuacán, and to devise means for improving them. 2nd – To investigate the historical antecedents, the present physical condition and the various aspects of civilization or culture which the population of the valley represents, as well as the adequate and feasible means which should be applied to attain their physical, intellectual, social and economic improvement” (1922:xii). In terms of his intention to modernize the local populations, Gamio completed several sub-projects. He undertook a critical evaluation of the 1910 Mexican Census, appending the results with his own survey of the entire population (1922:§3). He produced a topographical map of the region (1922:plates 1a-b) in order to mark the locations of resources which he believed could be exploited to develop the economy of the valley – such as the mineral deposits and ‘oro-hydrographic formations’ (1922:lxxxv). In addition, he also undertook the monumental undertakings of: inventorying the historic (primarily colonial churches, but also post-Independence bridges and other notable architecture), recording the folklore and handicraft traditions (especially textiles and ceramics) of the residents, catalogued the indigenous languages spoken, discussed the civic and regional governmental policies and studied the Catholic Church’s institutional influence upon the economic and political dynamics of the valley (1922:§4). At the end of the study, his Department of Anthropology opened a local museum hall where he displayed examples of prehispanic and historic artifacts, contemporary handicrafts, as well as the preliminary results and recommendations of the project (1922:xciii). Finally, in the conclusions (1922:§6) he made recommendations to stimulate the economy and modernize the valley – to the benefit, he hoped, of the local poor and indigenous populations. Amongst other suggestions, he called for the improvement of the region’s schools, increase the level of literacy through access to education, reduce taxes (!), decrease the Church’s complacency of the ‘hybrid’ or mestizo religion (an historic, syncretic religion) and increase their vigilance of marital relations, and increase the distribution of newspapers and periodicals. Sweeping and somewhat idiosyncratic recommendation which left uninvestigated no major aspect of the valley population’s way of living.
In term of the archeology, Gamio excavated and partly reconstructed the ciudadela and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Made a total of sixteen (more limited) stratigraphic excavations (some of the first examples of the use of more modern archaeological methods at the site) to obtain contextual and chronological data, made (partial) surveys of over 6 square kilometers, greatly extending the boundaries of the site, categorized the principal monuments and features (aside from the pyramids and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent), and produced a map elaborating that of Marquina’s (1922:lxi-lxvi) (Figure 4.8). For interpretations, he was able to disassociate the Toltec culture from that of Teotihuacan – a long-running and erroneous conflation - and attempted to resolve the problem of sequencing the Maya and Teotihuacan – though he incorrectly postulated the Teotihuacan culture as antedating the Maya civilization.
Figure 4.8: Manuel Gamio's relief map to Teotihuacan (from Gamio 1922:plate 4).
It was an admirable and ambitious project. His extensive use of ethnographic and archaeological techniques was unprecedented and has not been reproduced at Teotihuacan. His maps, however, visualize the lack of combining data from these two sources. His regional map (1922:plates 1a-b) bears little relationship to his map of the archaeological zone (Figure 4.8). He indeed expanded upon Marquina’s map (Figure 4.7), granting more detail to the ciudadela – which he was excavating – presenting the topography in a more three-dimensional form, and supplying an overlay sheet for the map which labeled more of the architectural features of the zone – many of which he had designated. But he supplied no overall grid or coordinate system with which to inter-collate the two maps of differing scales. The map of the region, with its infrastructure and some of the critical ‘resources’ for modern use, and the map of the archaeological zone function independently.
Similarly, he kept distinct his observations and interpretations of the modern populations from his concern with the archaeology of the site. In fact, he felt that the post-Conquest, and particularly the modern populations and their material culture, “show a marked decadence” from “high state of development which such efforts attained in former times” (1922:lvii). So despite stating that that “it is necessary to become acquainted with the corresponding historical phenomena in order to be able to fully appreciate the social phenomena which rule their present life” (1922:xl), and that, with respect to the ceramic tradition of the valley, the “contemporaneous pottery which. . . is a more or less degenerated continuation of the ancient potter’s art” (1922:lxxiii, my emphasis), Gamio kept distinct the two consideration of the two ‘continuous’ cultures. Where opportunities during the fieldwork seemed most conducive to collecting contemporary oral tradition or interpretations of the archaeological material, he notes the existence of such opinions but does not investigate them. For instance, “the inhabitants of the region, on their part, have their own particular ideas about the character of these monuments, ideas which are based not only on ethnographic or folk-loristic traditions of pre-Spanish and colonial times, but which appear suddenly on some special occasion” (1922:l). He continues to say that on one occasion this involved taboos concerning the burials in the ciudadela which Gamio was excavating on the part of one of his workman (Rosalío Aguilar). But he does not indicate what these ideas were, and simply notes that the exhumation of the burials continued and that the workman fell gravely ill (1922:li).
In another example, we are told that he employed 300 workman for the restoration and excavations in the ciudadela, but his primary concerns were that their “socialistic tendency” did not disrupt their work (1922:lxxxii), and that they were not intoxicated on pulque (a pre-Conquest drink derived from fermenting the cactus maguey) (1922:lxxxvii). Overall, his concern was to limit engagement with the archaeological zone on the part of the local population, so that the “aesthetic propoganda” of the zone would provide tourist revenue (1922:xc). In his recommendations, he emphasizes the potential for tourism to the valley as an important economic generator – noting its proximity to the Mexican capital – so that this ‘aesthetic propaganda’ should be kept intact.
In retrospect and judging from current archaeological standards, it cannot be helped to think that there may have been a lost opportunity on the part of Gamio’s excellent project to collect more information about the archaeology of the valley from the valley residents. This is especially so considering the amount of interaction that he and his anthropology team had with the inhabitants, particularly through the team’s population survey and the size of his workforce at the site. Indeed, because of his very goal, informed by seeing the past and present cultures as continuous (even if a ‘degeneration’ had occurred), of understanding and improving the contemporary population in relation to understanding the past civilization of the valley. Nevertheless, Gamio’s work suggests the gain which could be sought in systematically understanding the residents, employees and even visitors associations with Teotihuacan. This is the subject of the case study in the following chapters.
Forward to Chapter 4 conclusions
Containments
Return to Mercurial maps and pragmatic goals
