Tōllān Holy City

Tōllān, the site of Tula northwest of Mexico City, was known in Nahuatl as Tollan Xicocotitlan and rose after the decline of Teotihuacan as the capital of the Toltecs. Tula Chico flourished from about 650 to 900, and the ceremonial center of Tula Grande reached its height between 900 and 1150, housing perhaps sixty thousand people.

Its most sacred monument was the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, crowned by basalt columns carved as Toltec warriors. Drought and pressure from migrating Chichimeca groups undermined the city, whose ceremonial center was burned and abandoned in the twelfth century.

Later peoples remembered Tollan as the legendary city of wisdom and craftsmanship linked to the priest-king Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. When the Spanish arrived, scribes and feather workers still lived among its ruins, and the Aztecs traced their royal legitimacy back to its Toltec rulers.