Friday, July 18, 2025

Archaeologists discover 16th-century cemetery in Chapultepec Park

Archaeologists have found a cemetery in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park that dates from less than 100 years after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlán.

The cemetery was discovered in an archaeological rescue process during building work on the Chapultepec gardens and scenic pavilion. After an initial sounding pit revealed evidence of human remains, a full dig was organized to excavate the burial ground.

The National Institute of Archaeology and History (INAH) said that 21 skeletons were found in the cemetery, including two infants. The bodies had been buried at three different times, all  after Tenochtitlán’s fall in 1535. 

Some were buried in the Catholic style and others according to Mesoamerican traditions, the researchers said.

“We propose that this collective burial corresponds to a cemetery of the early viceroyalty (A.D. 1521–1620) because it shows the transition from pre-Hispanic funeral customs to those implemented with the arrival of the Spaniards and their religious system,” said dig coordinator, María de Lourdes López Camacho.

She explained that most of the skeletons were found facing east, likely alluding to the Christian belief in resurrection. But two were buried in a bent and lateral position, as in Mesoamerican rituals, and another two were found carrying obsidian objects of pre-Hispanic origin.

This led the archaeologists to believe that some of the dead were European and others Mexica. Tests revealed they had suffered from various conditions, including malnutrition, infection and inflammation in the bones.

This is not the first time that human remains of this period have been found in Chapultepec Park. In 2005, archaeologist María Guadalupe Espinosa Rodríguez excavated a 16th-century burial ground near the Garden of the Lions — an area previously occupied by the church of the indigenous village of San Miguel Chapultepec.

Excavations are continuing to the south and east of the newly discovered site.

With reports from El País

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
A man stands by an open suitcase in an airport revision area

Foreign national caught with over a million pesos of ketamine in Cancún airport

0
Officials confiscated 2 kilograms of ketamine, a controlled substance in Mexico.

The very best independent bookstores in Mexico City

0
The streets of Mexico City are lined with second (or third) hand literature, and you can find the best of them at these stunning locations.
two people walkin gby a for rent sign

Can rent control stop gentrification? Mexico City officials plan to find out

9
Political leaders in the nation's capital have reached into their anti-gentrification toolkit and come up with an approach that goes straight to the heart of the problem.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity