Pyramid of the Moon

19.6989°N, 98.8439°W.

The Pyramid of the Moon at the northern end of the Avenue of the Dead at Teotihuacan, immediately framed by the natural mountain Cerro Gordo whose silhouette the pyramid imitates. Construction was carried out in seven successive phases between approximately 100 CE and 450 CE, each phase building over and burying the previous structure — a Mesoamerican convention that preserved the earlier monuments intact within the later. Original final base 168 by 149 metres; original height 43 metres on five terraces. Excavations by Saburo Sugiyama and Rubén Cabrera between 1998 and 2004 recovered seven dedicatory burials within the substructure containing sacrificial victims with their hands tied behind their backs, decapitated big cats and birds of prey, obsidian and greenstone offerings, and a dedicatory deposit of human and animal remains numbering more than 100 individuals.

The northern terminus of a 4-kilometre ceremonial axis lined with pyramids, built to imitate the mountain behind it, with seven generations of older pyramids stacked inside it like a set of ritual dolls.