Hidden mere meters above the modern capital, a series of temples, palaces and mysterious artifacts from an ancient kingdom are being unearthed.

When we climbed 7 meters below the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City, I could feel my heart shoot. We have heard whispers about the temples buried above this iconic cathedral – one of the oldest and oldest in Latin America – but since its discovery in the 1970s, it has not been possible to see them. Now, it is part of a public excursion that allows visitors to explore the ancient secrets that are located below the depths of this church.

Almost 500 years after the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés demolished the Asteca capital of Tenochtitlán, the remains of the ancient metropole continue to be hidden mere meters above modern Mexico City. The Spaniards began to build the Metropolitan Cathedral in 1573 on top of two sacred Astecan temples (called “Mexica”) as a symbol of their conquest.

When electrical workers accidentally discovered a giant monolith near the cathedral in 1978, it led to a five-year excavation that unearthed the spectacular Templo Mayor de Mexica (“Great Temple”). Uncovering the ancient Spanish records of the layout of the Mexican capital will allow archaeologists to determine that there may be many more pre-Hispanic buildings buried nearby. It also inspired a series of excavations in andamento that continue to discover new clues about the way of life in Mexico. Here, many more than 21 thousand inhabitants of the City of Mexico pass away to life walking logo above two remains of the city of Mexico, waiting to be discovered below.

I took a breath as we began to climb in a spiral, exhaling barely when my eyes came to the Temple of Tonatiuh, or deus do sol. Tonatiuh was the pious governor not that the Mexica called “the era of the fifth sun” – a long period of development that is scheduled to end in destruction due to an earthquake. Given the city's recent history of earthquakes, this was a destabilizing thought to digest as soon as it was unsubstantiated. Nearby, there is a completely intact Piedra Chalchihuitl stone, with a stylized glyph that translates as “the precious or sacred place.”

Since 1991, the Urban Archeology Program (PAU), led by archaeologist Raúl Barrera Rodríguez, has worked non-stop to excavate an area of 500 square meters (near seven quarters of the center of the city of Mexico), in order to rediscover Tenochtitlán. In fact, every time workers repair water pipes or install underground electrical cables in the center of Mexico City, by law, the National Institute of Anthropology and History must be informed so that archaeologists can supervise the procedures.

“The precedence of archeology,” said Dr. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, the archaeologist who directed the excavation at the Templo Mayor, starting in 1978. Embora is also making things complicated for work teams, ensuring that all artifacts protected sejam ancients.

Thus discoveries in the center of the city continue to be revealed. The renovation of a building behind the cathedral in 2015 led PAU archaeologists to discover the great tzompantli: a cave shelf with 35m of compartment that previously contained wooden posts where the Mexica displayed the caves of their sacrificial victims. In two years of excavations completed in 2017, nearly 700 skulls were uncovered, along with a base with lookouts where wooden stakes containing skulls were displayed.