Rt'INS OF CEMPOALAN 



The earliest historical references to C'empoalan occur in the accounts 

 of the Conquest b}- Bernal Diaz del Castillo/' Francisco Lopez de 

 Gomara,* and other contemporaries. At the time of the Conquest 

 Cempoalan was so strikinjr a metropolis that it excited the admiration 

 of the Europeans, and from its nmny temples (''towers'") and large 

 Iniildings was called Sevilla. Its streets and plazas are said to have 

 swarmed with people, one author estimating the population at 30,000 

 souls; Whether this statement was exaggerated or not we may never 

 know, but the size and number of the temples prove that the city had 

 a considerable population. After the Conquest Cempoalan rapidly 

 declined in power and its ])opulation so dwindled that in 1580, accord- 

 ing to Patino,'' it had shrunk to 30 inhabited houses; it is stated that in 

 the 3'ear 1600 only one or two Cempoalafios lived on the old site, the 

 most of the survivors having been moved to the" jurisdiction of Jalapa, 

 where they were distributed in new '"congregations" by the then 

 Viceroy of Mexico, the Count of Monterey. The adjacent forests and 

 an exuberant tropical vegetation rapidly grew over the deserted build- 

 ings of the once populous city, so that in a few generations its site was 

 pi'actically forgotten by students. 



Regarding the position of the ruins, Bancroft writes as follows:'^ 



About the location of Cempoalan, a famous city in the time of the Conquest, there 

 has been much discussion. Lorenzana says that the place "still retains the same 

 name; it is situated 4 leagues from Vera Cruz and the extent of its ruins indicates 

 its former greatness." Rivera tells us, however, that "to-day not even the ruins of 

 this capital of the Totonac power remain, although some human bones have lieen 

 dug up about its site. ' ' 



All the old authors agree that the people who inhabited Cempoalan 

 belonged to the Totonac stock. This identification gives the study of 

 this ruin both an archeologic and ethnologic importance. A student of 

 the antiquities of Cempoalan need not doubt the kinship of its inhabit- 

 ants; but regarding the affinity of the inhabitants of many other Vera 



nHistoria Verdadera de la Conqvista de la Nueva-Espana, Mexico, 1632. 



fc Cronica de la Nueva-Espana. In chapter xxxii of this work the author describe.s a plaza of Cem- 

 poalan with rooms on one side and towers on the other, the walls of the latter shining in the sun like 

 silver. 



c Manuel Rivera. Historia Antigua y Moderna de Jalapa y de las Revoluciones del Estado de Vera 

 Cruz, Jalapa, 186^. The author had an opportunity to examine this work in Jalapa and from 

 it obtained the above statement ascribed to Patino, whose writings were not seen. According to 

 Rivera, Alonzo Patiilo presented a "piano" of Cempoalan in 1.580 to Martin Enriquez, but much to 

 his regret the author has not been able to see this plan. 



''Bancroft. The Native Races, iv (.\ntitiuities), 136, San Francisco, 1882. 



233 



