Tunnels in Cholula pyramid, 2nd biggest pyramid in the world

Описание: Cholula, Puebla, Mexico.

Inside the 5-Kilometer tunnels in the Tlachihualtepetl pyramid, at Cholula, Mexico. This pyramid is the second biggest pyramid in the world (The biggest being the Danta pyramid at El Mirador, Guatemala).

The tunnels inside the Cholula pyramid are an actual maze, which encompass thousand of years of overlapping construction as well as tunnels to burial chambers and secret passages. Many burials, including that of a Mayan lord, where found here, but none of the supreme religious rulers that governed this sacred city.

Cholula was for many centuries and independent state, with its own rulers. It was a holy and sacred place, similar to what the Vatican has been to Europe or Jerusalem to the Middle East. As with the Vatican, Cholula several times in Ancient Mexico's history was where indigenous Kings and Emperors went to be innaugurated or at least accepted as rulers. One of them was the famous Emperor of the Three Mixtecas, 8 Deer Jaguar Claw, Yya Canu (King of Kings) of Tilantongo, who came here to be recognized to the known-world as Emperor.

Legend says this pyramid was constructed by a race of giants. Right after few giants survived the Great Deluge during the last change of era (when the Mayan calendar last started) they came to Cholula led by a giant named Xelhua. They constructed this huge pyramid in honor of a big mountaing that saved their lives from the flood. After the demise of the race of giants, the pyramid kept building up. Cholula witnessed the glory of the Teotihuacan Empire, the Golden Age Mexico ever had, known today as the Classical period. After the collapse of Teotihuacan, the pyramid saw the emergence of the Toltec Empire, the rise of Quetzalcoatl, their fall, the arrival of the Chichimec Empire, its fragmentation, the rise of Atzcapotzalco, and finally the rise of a tiny hut island that grew into what we now know as the Aztec Empire. Cholula was key during the arrival of the Spanish, and as the Spanish Empire established the New Spain, the pyramid was deemed heretic, and a rather beautiful church was constructed in the top, forever changing the face of the pyramid, till our times. After the Mexican Revolution the PRI government's efforts were made to rediscovery these tunnels and save whatever it could. During the change of rule in Mexico in 2000, the new PAN government invested in Cholula naming it Pueblo Magico (Magical Town) in efforts to invite national and international tourism. Nowadays you can hear French, German, English, and of course the native Nahuatl and Spanish in modern-day Cholula.