The holy city of Teoti­hua­can (‘the place where the gods were cre­at­ed‘) is sit­u­at­ed some 50 km north-east of Mex­i­co City. Built between the 1st and 7th cen­turies A.D., it is char­ac­ter­ized by the vast size of its mon­u­ments — in par­tic­u­lar, the Tem­ple of Quet­zal­coatl and the Pyra­mids of the Sun and the Moon, laid out on geo­met­ric and sym­bol­ic prin­ci­ples. As one of the most pow­er­ful cul­tur­al cen­tres in Mesoamer­i­ca, Teoti­hua­can extend­ed its cul­tur­al and artis­tic influ­ence through­out the region, and even beyond.