Excavations at the "Ajaracas" and "Campanas" Sites: Colonial Houses in the Center of Mexico City.

The "Ajaracas" house is situated at Guatemala street, number 38. The "Campanas" house is in the street called Argentina at number 6. Although both houses are located outside the present archaeological zone of the Great Temple, they were built on what is, in fact, part of the oldest building of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, namely the great Temple itself. The following illustration shows that the houses were built over the grand staircase of the platform of the Great Temple’s penultimate construction phase.

The 2000 excavation season, during which the offerings to Tlaloc were found, was not the first conducted by PAU at the "Ajaracas" site. In 1994, Offerings 99 and 100 were recovered in which a magnificent disc made out of tiny pieces of turquoise mosaic was found. After four long years, the time it took to restore it, it is presently exhibited in Hall 1 of the museum. In the year 2000 a second excavation season was carried out at the same place because the Government of the Federal District (Mexico City) planned to build on this site. Consequently, PAU undertook the necessary excavations, which extended to the house next door to the "Ajaracas", known as the "Campanas", or the Bells. By the time excavations in both houses were concluded the grand staircase of the penultimate construction phase of the Great Temple had been exposed after more than five hundred years.

Along with recovering architectural information, seven offerings were found. These were numbered 101 to 107 in order to continue the progressive numbering system assigned to all other offerings found within the Great Temple area. These last seven offerings were all dedicated to Tlaloc and the motive behind this temporary exhibit is this truly extraordinary find.

Translated from Spanish by Annis Graetz.