Barbara_E._Mundy]_The_Death_of_Aztec_Tenochtitlan

The TLaTOani in TenochTiTlan • 63

stood nearby. Salvage archeology carried out by Rubén
Cabrera C. in 1975 has brought light to the achievements
of Mexica engineers at Chapultepec. 44 Water oozed from
the natural springs within the hill and normally would flow
downward into the nearby laguna. The Mexica intervened
in this process by creating tanks at the base of the hill,
fed by the springs. These thick-walled tanks allowed water
pressure to build up, enough so the water would propel
itself down the Chapultepec aqueduct, which ran along
the lakeshore in a northeasterly direction before joining
with the causeway running from Tlacopan (see figure 1.1).
Along the causeway, the water flowed in an ingenious
system of a double set of pipes, where one was always
functioning while the second was being cleaned and
repaired. 45 Cabrera’s excavations revealed one part of the
system of retaining tanks; since these same springs fed the
city through the nineteenth century, the system had been
continually rebuilt, and most of the tanks he found dated
to the colonial and modern periods. 46 But a small part of
the pre-Hispanic piece of the system was revealed, identi-
fiable as such by a thick coating of stucco on the outside

of the buildings, typical of pre-Hispanic structures. Two

low structures, parallel and adjacent, about eight feet high,

carefully finished with a thick stucco coat, were constructed

with a sloping talud, topped by a thick entablature, the

conventional architectural signature of sacred buildings

(figure 3.5). In the aperture between these buildings, water

once flowed, where a small dam could regulate its force. In

the early 1970s, off the southwestern corner of this com-

plex, electrical workers made an accidental find (leading to

the salvage project) of pre-Hispanic sculptures, including

a sculpted image of the rain deity Tlaloc. The presence of

this cache led the archeologists to posit that there might

have been some kind of temple structure adjacent to the

water dam to house the sculptures of water deities. This

temple stood in a grove of great ahuehuetl trees, which may

Structure

Ahuehuetl tree

Ahuehuetl tree

Ahuehuetl tree

Presumed location of

water tank

Toward sculpture

of Moteuczoma II

Structure

Barrier to control

water flow

Canal

Towa

rd Te

nochti tlan

figuRe 3.5. Map of structures at the foot of Chapultepec to supply

water to the aqueduct, by Olga Vanegas. After Rubén Cabrera C.,

María Antonieta Cervantes, and Felipe Solís Olguín, “Excavaciones

en Chapultepec, México, D.F.” Diario del Campo, Suplemento 36

(October–December, 2005), 34.