Last week several students went to visit Claxcala pyramid -- far more accessible than the more famous ones not too far from Puebla that we'd visited previously.
The main pyramid at this site is covered by a HUGE roof to protect against damage from light and erosion. The main pyramid wasn't found until the mid-'90s, after a smaller one was located by accident when a farmer was digging with his tractor.
The other pyramids were too difficult for me to climb because each step was too high and the stairs were too steep . . . and there were no handrails. I climbed up -- and back down -- and up to get to the bases of the two biggest pyramids (Sun and Moon), but for once, I stifled my sense of adventure and stayed at the base, looking up -- when I wasn't busy turning away swarms of vendors.
But at Claxcala there were few other visitors, the roof kept the blazing sun off us and, for the protection of the site, there were boardwalks and wooden stairs, the latter actually built to human scale and with handrails. I huffed and I puffed (Hey! It's above 6,000 feet!) and I saw this amazing place with beautiful (though damaged and fading) murals, an elaborate layout and immense size.
Generations of laborers hauled the rocks to build it, and very clever engineers figured out how to build it with few tools of any kind. Once I'm back in the States I hope to post pix and links to info, but the Spanish-language keyboards here have me a bit boggled.
As with the other pyramid complex, there are smaller pyramids nearby, and a small museum with objects recovered from the site. As in the other museum, there are many pottery vessels -- some obviously useful in daily life, others ceremonial. Unlike the other museum, though, the human figures are all female. This was a pyramid dedicated to fertility. (They needed an endless supply of laborers to build the pyramids, after all.)
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