Xochicalco Archaeological Zone
A City in the Hills
Terraces, walls, and moats to support and defend an entire city.
Location: Arrival and First Look, Xochicalco Archaeological Zone.
Look at the city as a set of steps. Xochicalco rose in a region that was hard to reach, on a series of natural hills, and that was part of its defense.
According to the INAH, the city was founded in the second half of the seventh century on several hills. There was also occupation on six lower hills in the surrounding area. Kenneth Hirth explains that the core was made up of three hills that were modified and connected with terraces.
Achieving this took a great feat of engineering. A conservation study describes how the hill was remodeled by cutting and filling. The terraces and retaining walls created flat spaces for plazas and houses. Stairways, ramps, and terraces link them along a main north-south axis.
UNESCO divides the city into three levels. On the lower level there was a residential zone, surrounded by walls with defended entrances. On the middle level stood a market complex and the largest ball court. On the upper level the temples are grouped around the Main Plaza.
Defense was also written into the landscape. The site director, Medina Romero, mentions a wall four meters high, with bastions and moats, on the south side. Other descriptions speak of ramps, moats, bastions, and forts. A city like this was not conceived for strolling. It was conceived for resisting.
An old detail: Antonio Alzate, who visited the site in seventeen seventy-seven, estimated the main hill at about one hundred seven meters high. It is a measurement from more than two centuries ago, but it shows how much the massive hill impressed him.
Most of the houses on the slopes remain unexcavated. That means what you see is only part of the city. Beneath many terraces there may be more history.
As you walk, notice two things: the walls that hold up the terrain and the way the stairways join one level to another. That is Xochicalco: a city built by hand, stone upon stone, on difficult hills.
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