El Cerrito

With an immense pyramid standing out among the great metropolis of the city of Querétaro, in the municipality of Corregidora, El Cerrito Archaeological Monument Zone was one of the most important ceremonial centers in the region, created and inhabited by various pre-Hispanic cultures, especially the Toltecs.

The altars, plazas, patios, and pyramidal bases that constitute this ceremonial center show square and rectangular shapes. The walls of these structures present a slope formed by basalt slabs, and the Toltec style of El Cerrito included in all the spaces abundant stone sculptures, walls decorated with mosaics in relief, and other ornaments.

Around 700 AD. -In the middle of the Epiclassic period, a square platform was built on the highest part of a rock outcrop; with this work, the local inhabitants, influenced by Western cultures, began the foundations of what would become the ceremonial center.

It was around 900 A.D., when groups from the northern border of Mesoamerica, known as Chichimecs, moved through the central highlands. Along the way, they founded monumental ceremonial and political centers called Tallan. The Tallan were replicas of the original site where the concept of the world was reproduced: the identity of the Toltec-Chichimec peoples.

During the following 400 years, El Cerrito, which at first was a ceremonial center, surrounded by settlements and semi-dispersed rooms in the valley of Querétaro, became an important sanctuary, venerated by pilgrimages that came from distant places, from which came raw materials and merchandise found as offerings, deposited in various altars of this important site.

It is believed that by the beginning of the Late Postclassic, around 1200, the Toltecs began to abandon El Cerrito. During the following 300 years, it continued being occupied by Chichimec and Otomi groups in a partial way; even, some historical documents of the XVII century indicate that, even in the year 1632, the Otomi deposited offerings in the pyramidal base.

The Pyramid of the Great Cue, with a height of approximately 30 meters, is considered one of the largest in the northern region of the country.

It also has a site museum that tells the history of this ceremonial center through computer graphics and a vast collection of about 170 clay figurines, ceremonial braziers, stelae, vessels, and ornaments that were found in the area.