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Nearly 2,000 years ago , the ancient hoi polloi ofTeotihuacanwrapped bunches of flowers into beautiful bouquets , laid them beneath a jumble of Mrs. Henry Wood and adjust the pile aflame . Now , archeologist have find the corpse of those amazingly well - preserved flowers in a tunnel snaking beneath a pyramid of the ancient urban center , located nor'-east of what is now Mexico City .
The pyramid itself is immense , and would have put up 75 feet ( 23 meters ) tall when it was first built , making it marvellous than theSphinx of Gizafromancient Egypt . The Teotihuacan Great Pyramid is part of the " Temple of the Feathered Serpent , " which was built in honor of Quetzalcoatl , a serpent god who was worshipped in Mesoamerica .
A bouquet of flowers found in a tunnel under a Teotihuacan pyramid survived a bonfire about 2,000 years ago.
Archaeologists found the sweetness 59 foot ( 18 m ) below priming coat in the deepest part of the tunnel , sound out Sergio Gómez - Chávez , an archaeologist with Mexico ’s National Institute of Anthropology and History ( INAH ) who is leading the archeological site of the burrow . Numerous pieces of pottery , along with a carving show Tlaloc , a god associated with rainfall and fertility , were ground beside the bouquets , he added .
The bouquets were likely part of rituals , possibly relate with fertility , that autochthonous people performed in the tunnel , Gómez - Chávez told Live Science in a translate e-mail . The squad hop that by learn the identity of the prime , they can learn more about the rituals .
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A digital reconstruction of the tunnel running under the pyramid at Teotihuacan.(Image credit: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH)/Sergio Gómez)
The team distinguish the bouquets just a few weeks ago . The act of flowers in each sweetness varies , Gómez - Chávez say , noting that one bouquet has 40 flowers tied together while another has 60 bloom .
Archaeologistsfound evidence of a large bonfire with legion pieces of sunburn wood where the fragrance were laid down , Gómez - Chávez say . It seems that citizenry placed the posy on the earth first and then covered them with a immense amount of wood . The sheer amount of Mrs. Henry Wood seems to have protect the bouquets from the bonfire ’s flames .
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One of the 2,000-year-old bouquets is prepped for research.(Image credit: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH)/Sergio Gómez)
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The tunnel that Gómez - Chávez ’s squad is excavating was find in 2003 and has yielded thousands of artifact including pottery , sculptures , cocoa beans , obsidian , beast stay and even a miniature landscape painting with pools of liquidmercury . Archaeologists are still trying to understand why ancient hoi polloi created the tunnel and how they used it .
The Temple of the Feathered Serpent at Teotihuacan, Mexico(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Teotihuacan hold several pyramids and flourished between roughly 100 B.C. and A.D. 600 . It had an urban core that covered 8 hearty international nautical mile ( 20 solid kilometers ) and may have had a population of 100,000 people .
Originally release on Live Science .
Sergio Gómez-Chávez does excavation work in the tunnel beneath the Teotihuacan pyramid.(Image credit: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH)/Sergio Gómez)
