Archaeologists Use Robot to Explore Ancient Teotihuacan Tunnel in Mexico

By Dexter Panganiban on Nov 11, 2010 in Current Events, United States • No comments

Teotihuacan, Mexico – According to different international news site, the first robotic exploration of a Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan in Mexico has been implemented.

Archaeologists lowered one-foot (30-cm) wide robot called “Tlaloque 1” camera-equipped vehicle into the 12-foot-wide (4-meter) corridor to see if it was safe for researchers to enter. The name “Tlaloque 1” is after the Aztec rain god.

View of the Avenue of the Dead and the Pyramid of the Sun, from the Pyramid of the Moon : Image Credit : Wikipedia.com

The footage presented to the media by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, shows a narrow, open space left after the tunnel was intentionally closed off between A.D. 200 and 250 and filled with debris nearly to the roof.

Archaeologist Sergio Gomez says that the footage where it showed the arched-roof tunnel was an example of sophisticated work by the ancient inhabitants of Teotihuacan, which is located just north of modern Mexico City.

“All of the passage, more than 100 meters (yards) long was excavated in the rock perfectly, and in some places you can even see the marks of the tools the people of Teotihuacan used to make it,” said Gomez.

Reports also says that the images captured by robots shows well-worked blocks and a smoothly-arched ceiling showed the tunnel was not natural, but rather a man-made structure that researchers believe lead to possible burial chambers.

The scanner images appear to show chambers that branch off the tunnel and archaeologists think they may hold the tombs of some of the ancient city’s early rulers.

Experts believe that the tunnel run beneath the Temple of Quetzacoatl, in the central ceremonial area of the ruins.

Archaeologist Sergio Gómez Chávez, Image Credit: INAH , Photographer: Mauricio Marat

Gomez says that rich offerings were tossed into the tunnel at the moment it was closed up, including almost 50,000 objects of jade, stone, shell and pottery, including ceramic beakers of a kind never found before at the site.

The complex of pyramids, plazas, temples and avenues was once the center of a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants and may have been the largest and most influential city in pre-Hispanic North America at the time.