River Gods and the "Atlantes de Tula"

Underneath the Queensboro Railway Bridge, looking over towards New Westminster Quay, MN discovered these ancient relics.

When I saw the photo, it immediately reminded me of the mysterious pillars left by the Toltecs, in Tula de Allende, a short distance from Mexico City.

No-one really knows why they stand as they do, four 15-feet-tall stone pillars on a five-sided pyramid. (The pyramids in Teotihuacan, home, finally, to the Aztecs have four sides.) It is presumed that they are the supports for the wooden roof of a temple, although there is no other sign of such a roof. Even the pillars themselves were broken, tumbled into piles of rock; they have been reconstructed.

There are no others like them, at least discovered so far. (Who can tell what may still be buried under any Mexican hill?)



The Toltecs were the probable builders of Teotihuacan, but abandoned the city finally, for unknown reasons, and re-built in Tollan, or today's Tula, where they stayed for about 4 centuries. Some histories say they were driven out, then, by the Chichimecs, barbarian nomads, which seems unlikely. Others say that they disappeared as mysteriously from Tollan as they had from Teotihuacan and that the Chichimeca came some time later to destroy the city. There are tales and tragedies here that we never will hear. ... The Aztecs, other nomads, wandered in sometime around the 13th century, settled in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and set about expanding their empire until the Toltecs became a mere memory. Tollan fell into ruins.

History is not kind to the losers; when modern visitors think of ancient Mexico, they think of the Aztecs and their bloody cult to the sun. Not the Toltecs, where it all started.

We do know a few things. The pyramid is called the temple of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli.

(No, that is not too hard to read. Break it up. Tla -- "tl" gives you a sound not used in English, but just start with your tongue in the "t" position, then say "la"; you've got it! -- huiz -- pronounced "wees" -- cal - pan -- easy enough -- te cuh -- "tay coo" -- and another "tl" sound; tli --say "tlee". See? Simple.)

The name has been translated as "temple of the morning star", although the ending, "cuhtli" means "Lord", so that "morning star" probably refers to the Plumed Serpent, in one of his disguises.

A far cry from our more modern "river gods", made of wood and moldering into the river. More peaceful; no human hearts ripped out here, no dancers in still-bloody skins of animals and people. More humble; no cult at all, no names, no "Lord" of anything.

Still, the same general structure, the same "O" mouth, the same erased memory. Fading, falling, giving way to more modern cities and gods, both groups. And probably used for a similar purpose; to hold up a wooden pier, as the "Atlantes" held up a wooden roof.