Chalcatzingo

Two bare rock massifs, Cerro Delgado and Cerro Ancho (also called Chalcatzingo), rise abruptly from the valley floor of eastern Morelos, and at their feet lies one of the oldest archaeological sites in the Central Highlands. It belongs to the municipality of Jantetelco and is run by INAH; since 2002 it has been protected as an archaeological petroglyph zone.

People lived here very early: rock shelters on Cerro Delgado hold paintings dated to around 3000 BC. A village took shape by about the 15th century BC and reached its height in the Middle Preclassic, between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, when 500 to 1,000 people lived around a ceremonial centre of some 40 hectares. In Mesoamerican belief the two hills were sacred mountains, which goes a long way to explaining the choice of site.

Chalcatzingo is known above all for its reliefs, carved on the near-vertical rock faces at the base of the hill in a style that points to the Olmecs of the Gulf Coast. The most famous is El Rey, or the Water Bearer: a life-size seated figure inside a cave shaped like a jaguar's open jaws, part of a group of carvings about rain and fertility. Others show felines attacking people, a creature resembling a feathered serpent, and the Estela de la Reina, thought to be the earliest depiction of a woman in Mesoamerican monumental art. Eulalia Guzmán made the first explorations in 1934, after a storm exposed El Rey, and from 1972 a University of Illinois and INAH project led by David Grove catalogued the monuments.

On the flat ground below are Terrace 1, where the ruling families lived, Terrace 25 with its sunken patio, and Structure 4, a platform about 70 m on each side that held high-status burials. Recent excavations have also uncovered a later central group from the Classic to Early Postclassic (AD 200-1200), with a ball court and two pyramid platforms on either side of a small plaza. The modern village of Chalcatzingo has an 18th-century church dedicated to San Mateo.