Locat­ed in the state of Ver­acruz, El Tajin was at its height from the ear­ly 9th to the ear­ly 13th cen­tu­ry. It became the most impor­tant cen­tre in north-east Mesoamer­i­ca after the fall of the Teoti­hua­can Empire. Its cul­tur­al influ­ence extend­ed all along the Gulf and pen­e­trat­ed into the Maya region and the high plateaux of cen­tral Mex­i­co. Its archi­tec­ture, which is unique in Mesoamer­i­ca, is char­ac­ter­ized by elab­o­rate carved reliefs on the columns and frieze. The ‘Pyra­mid of the Nich­es‘, a mas­ter­piece of ancient Mex­i­can and Amer­i­can archi­tec­ture, reveals the astro­nom­i­cal and sym­bol­ic sig­nif­i­cance of the build­ings. El Tajin has sur­vived as an out­stand­ing exam­ple of the grandeur and impor­tance of the pre-His­­pan­ic cul­tures of Mex­i­co.