Posted May 31, 2006
A huge day. We went to the Zocalo to visit the major central city sites. This group picture is in the courtyard of the Palacio Nacional, which is the Mexican equivalent of the Capitol building.
The major thing to see here is the stairway murals by Diego Rivera. We hired Sr. Castro, an expert guide who gives excellent interpretation of the murals. He had the group sit on the stairs so he could point out the major aspects of the wall that he calls Diego's philosophy wall.
Mural of Tenochitlan market by Diego. Notice the human arm being offered to lady in white head-dress to the right.
Here's the group up on the balcony looking at the murals that Diego painted all along the north wall. Mary Garcia got some good pictures here, although it's difficult, since the murals are large and the balcony is only about 15 feet wide, so you can't get the complete picture without a wide angle lens.
Dye-makers mural by Diego.
Gold workers mural by Diego.
Group in front of Cortez occupation mural. His last (1952) in Palacio Nacional.
Luis Ortiz and Shawn in front of same mural.
Group checking out the courtyard in Palacio Nacional. That's Miguel Zambrada in red cap and Joe Villa in gray cap with arms crossed.
The historic parliament chamber that is no longer used.
The chairman's position in the Parliament chamber.
Nelson Garza checks out some old legal documents on display in the Parliament foyer.
We then went to the Templo Mejor, which was the major temple of Tenochitlan when Cortes arrived. It's the tallest one to the back side. This temple was destroyed, as was almost everything else after the conquest. The stones from it were used to build the cathedral, which is directly to the west of the site of the Templo Mejor. The whole thing was buried as it sunk into the muddy lake bottom and was discovered in the 1970's and an excellent museum has been developed to show the huge number of artifacts that were discovered there.
Some of the artifacts. Lots more, but no space to show more.
Quite a number of skeletons were found there, buried ceremonially. See the snake shaped stones that are pointing inward to a central round strone to the back of the skeleton in the front.
Temple of the skulls.Part of theTemplo Mejor.
The cast of the stone of the broken woman that was found on the front platform on the 6th level of the temple.
A very well preserved Choc-Mool, which was used in ceremonial human sacrifices. The freshly removed human heart would be placed in the bowl on his belly. You see this feature in many archeological sites around Mexico. This is the best I've seen and I've seen a bunch!
After the Templo, we went to the Cathedral Nacional, which is across from Templo. Actually, the cathedral is the part of the church with the two bell towers. The part to the right is a parochrial church. Services were underway in both churches, so we didn't stay long.
They've worked to restore the cathedral for many years and it's looking fine, as you can see from this picture of the ceiling and the pipe organ sticking out from the left.
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