Puebla Tehuacán

The central highlands of Cantona are among the most important archeological sites in Mexico but very little is known about of the area. Only accessible by the Federal highway 129, it is necessary to go first through Tepeyahualco then take the road to Cantona, located some 115 kilometers from the state capital.



The rescue of this pre-Hispanic city of great architectural complexity is one of the 14 special projects for archaeological research that currently exists in Mexico. Cantona is the megalopolis in the center north of the eastern basin, located in what is called the "bad lands" an area with very low vegetation and dense materials. The location of Cantona was of major importance in the role it played in history, its strategic location on the route of commercial and cultural exchanges between the peoples of the east coast and in the central highlands was found to be the origin of its fortune. Today we know with certainty that its heyday occurred between Late Classic era and early Posclásico, between the seventh century and the tenth century. There are three to five thousand yards and 15 thousand architectural structures.

Cantona had an extensive and developed community system with elevated roadways and numerous alleys, hallways, stairways and ramps; it was also an intricate network of courtyards and delimited perimeter walls, almost all within other architectural structures. Archeologists have discovered remains of altars, pyramids and inner rooms, as well as 22 ball fields more then has been found in any other prehistoric settlement in Mexico. The existence of this city was learned in the late eighteenth century, when it was mentioned in the Gazettes of Mexican sage Jose Antonio Alzate; however it is thought to have been discovered by a French man by the name of Henri de Saussure in 1855. Increasingly serious studies of Cantona began in the 1930s, but it was not until 1993 that a rescue project began.

Given the monumentality of Cantona, at the moment only a representative portion of the settlement has been uncovered, of which the visitor has a vision of what this great city might have been like. The circuit for visitors includes touring elevated roads, housing areas, plazas, courtyards and platforms, as well as three ball games, two pyramids and a temazcal. Although this area accounts for only two per cent of Cantona, the length of the route is three miles.

In the territory of the state, the northern sierra looks like huge jade expanses. There is so much to know and admire it is imperative to make at least one tour of the east side of Cantona and another of the west. The first part of the tour route splits in two directions: one that begins in the city of Zacapoaxtla and crosses the famous and picturesque town of Cuetzalan, to finish at the archeological zone Yohualichan, the largest remnant of the Totonaca culture.

The second direction is gaining ground to the extreme east, near the borders of Veracruz. It starts in the quiet town of Tlatlauqui and is diverted to the beautiful dam La Soledad and people Mazatepec. Returning the path continues by the risueña population Chignautla.