Leonardo López, the archaeologist who unearths the history of Tenochtitlan under Mexico City
E. Alejandro M. Alarcón
Under the asphalt and skyscrapers of Mexico City, lies a living testimony of Mesoamerican history: Tenochtitlan. Leonardo López Luján, archaeologist and director of the Templo Mayor Project, has been deciphering the hidden secrets that lie under the modern metropolis for more than three decades.
López Luján was predestined to rescue the memory of Tenochtitlan: His mother was the assistant of the most famous French nationalized Mexican archaeologist of the 20th century, Alberto Ruz Lhuiller, and his father was a historian specializing in the Mexican civilization.
At only eight years old, he began to help in excavations during the summers, taking care of the "most terrible work an archaeologist can do," washing and marking tons of ceramic fragments, he recalls in an interview with EFE.
The atmosphere in the house of the López Luján family, where the topic of conversation during meals was the study of the indigenous world, and the constant trips to the archaeological areas, shaped his vocation.
At the age of 16, López Luján joined the "Templo Mayor" project of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico and in 1980 he joined the most important team of archaeologists in the country, which he has directed since 1991.
more than 40 years, "Templo Mayor" has been dedicated to exhuming much of the sacred enclosure of Tenochtitlan, which has allowed the discovery of fundamental aspects of the Mexica civilization, although the process is not without difficulties.
In Mexico City, he explained, three layers of history coexist: on the surface, the contemporary one; a few meters below, the one that was the capital of New Spain for 300 years; and even deeper, Tenochtitlan, the great Mexican city.
Urban density and the instability of the subsoil are some of the many obstacles that López Luján faces with his team, of approximately 30 people, to unearth the vestiges of a past that is still alive and that still has much to reveal.
"We don't dig where we want, but where we can. Where there is a public work, a private work, the construction of the subway (..) our excavations are very limited, small wells, allow us to see very little. We don't have great prospects," he said.
Added to these problems are looting and the illegal sale of archaeological pieces. Many of these treasures end up in large auctions in cities like New York, Brussels or Paris.
"Many times the builders without warning make a work and destroy some trace or it is the object of looting," he lamented.
However, López Luján rescues the value of archeology. The study of the past, he says, is key to understanding the present and building a more conscious future.
Pre-Hispanic civilizations "project their lights and shadows to us," with valuable lessons about the relationship with nature and about mistakes that we should not repeat.
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