It is fascinating to discover the original names of Mexico’s ancient pre-Hispanic cities, and one example is Iztapan. In Nahuatl it means something like “Where there is salt”. They began to settle in 200 BC to exploit the salt, and its population changed to become San Miguel Ixtapan. We talk a lot about Yucatán, its tourism and wonders (as well as its controversial gentrification), but there is also a very important archaeological site in San Miguel de Ixtapan in Central America.

And there is an organization called Project ARX that wants to uncover all the secrets of San Miguel Ixtapan. What they find is something that shouldn’t be there.

latest technology. It is obvious that Mexico is a mine. We occasionally hear about the work of the Mayan Train, projects currently underway, or possible archaeological sites discovered by a neighbor who expanded the farm and can no longer do so.

Cutting-edge technology also allows us to explore the interior of archaeological sites such as Chichén Itzal Castle, and they focus on the ARX Project, a group of researchers who use cutting-edge technology to explore archaeological sites in a non-invasive way. Like the Mitla church in Oaxaca (discovering an entrance to “infamando”).

San Miguel Ixtapan. As we said, it is an important archaeological site located approximately 100 kilometers southwest of Toluca, and although it was inhabited for centuries, the peak was reached between 700 and 900 AD. This coincided with the decline of Teotihuacán and is very interesting. The first thing they found at the site was not a ruin of it, but a rock-cut model representing one of the temples dating to between 900 and 1200 AD.

floors. The region could not be examined in depth due to some difficulties, but the ARX Project has been exploring the region since 2021 and has made very interesting discoveries. Perhaps most relevant are more than a dozen megalithic stone slabs of a very different design: they form an inverted ‘T’ on a framed rectangle. Its meaning is unknown, but it may be related to Mesoamerican concepts such as Chicomoztoc.

Origin: unknown. The meaning of ‘T’ isn’t the only thing they don’t know. Although many slabs have been dated as being constructed during the Epicclassic period (between 700 and 900 AD), others may be much older. It is also possible that they were all used before and reused later.

But the strange thing is that none of these megalithic slabs were carved or constructed according to Mesoamerican artistic trends. In fact, researchers concluded that they bear more similarity to rocks from Peru and Bolivia.

Aquiagua. It’s always good to say “we found an unknown civilization” and of course the ARX team won’t confirm it but they’re leaving that out because they haven’t managed to find the key, at least for now. This anchors the style of megalithic slabs to the region. The first thing that comes to my mind is a case like Stonehenge, but that is another topic.

During this year’s exploration, in addition to the slabs, ARX also found terraces, fortifications and pre-Hispanic structures along the Aquiagua River. A megalithic quarry with a half-finished work was also discovered: a half-finished block measuring three by three meters and weighing more than 25 tons, showing that the civilization had an advanced technique for both mining and transporting large rocks.

work to be done. Although this is already an achievement, the ARX Project will continue to study the area (as well as other ongoing research) and one very useful thing they are doing is documenting everything they find, digitizing it and applying 3D photogrammetry techniques to make it easier to preserve and study. .

The hypothesis is that, like the Egyptians along the Nile, after they finished working with the rocks they transported them across Aquiagua, and if you’re curious, you have the digitized library created by the ARX Project at this link.

Pictures | ARX ​​Project, RG

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