Complejo de las Columnas

• Juego de Pelota 17/27 and 13/14
  In his facades a cross, glyphs associated with the Venus Complex, a composition of frets that are related with Quetzalcoatl. Both games are of the closed type with a form of a double T. They are closed on the south part by a temple. Apparently, this building are related in time and space with the ones from the Grupo Plaza del Arroyo.
• Central Zone
  It stands by his buildings of a variety of forms and functions, with no apparent order. In this part we can find: Building 1, known as Piramide de los nichos; building 2; building 3, known as Azul, and building 4; all of them representatives of the architectural greatness of the perhispanic city of Tl Tajin.
• Juego de Pelota Sur
  The buildings 5 and 6 form the Juego de Pelota Sur, that distinguish itself in form and importance form the rest. Instead of the slope, that in the other Juegos de Pelota gives the shape to the field, it has terraces for the public assisting the ceremony that ends with the decapitation of one or several players. The more over standing characteristics of this edification are its reliefs in a board shape, located in both edges and at the center of the field, in with different aspects of the Juego de Pelota are told. On the diagonal edges, its beginning is shown; on the others, the end which ends in sacrifice. The two center boards reproduce the meaning of the game, meaning, the bonanza pursued with the blood of the sacrifice.
  
  In front of the construction, several temples are located also a field which has a polychromatic exterior mural, which theme is religious in his most abstract and esoteric form. It consist on a concatenation of a principal glyph, the staggered fret, Quetzalcoatl´s attribute. The relief, in the center of the field´s walls, explains once more the antagonistic of the human existence in the prehispanic cosmovision: a character divided it two bodies with a single head.
• Building 12
  They stand out for the original composition of the niches that adorn its first body. On it columns where used instead of blocks, as it is common on the other constructions. At east, the back facade of the Piramide de los Nichos can be seen, recently repaired, consolidated and restored.
• Pirámide de los Nichos
  This building consists of seven bodies, each one surrounded by niches that add 365, which coincides with the number of days on the solar year. According to the urban arguments, it was one of the last to be constructed, for this matter an artificial space was created in front of it. It construction consists on a nucleus in which everybody starts; on its interior, there is a 14 meters long fall. This building owes his existence to a powerful politic-religious reason and, for those matters, it has been the only one that has remain for centuries without falling completely. At the same time, shows the splendor of the prehispanic settlement, maybe during the reign of Trece Conejo, governor know for the Tajin´s reliefs. The temple´s boards and friezes are now at the museum of the place.
• Grupo Tajín Chico
  Throw all the Muro de Contencion Norte, this sector is characterized for its residential constructions for the governing class and the elite of the ancient society of El Tajin. The buildings that are found there are separated from the rest of the city by an architectonical barrier that divides the public from the residential. In El Tajin Chico, the constructions are solid, and its mezzanines and roofs are casted. To obtain modern concrete like results, pozzolanian dust and lime, mixture that has the same effect as cement, to tie up the mixture; because of this they can be consider casted roofs of El Tajin.
• Complejo de las Columnas
  This complex is found in the tallest and with the most restricted access of the city.
• Edificio de las Columnas
  They carry that name because there where found the columns that related the exploits of the character known as Trece Conejo. Actually they are on exhibition on the museum of the site.
• Edificio 1
  Coming down from the Edificio de las Comlunas to the El Tajin Chico, it is found the Edificio I. There were found valuable polychromatic paints with religious themes that show zooantropomorfus characters that represent gods of El Tajin cemetery. Going down the stairs of the architectonical barrier, the Juego de Pelota Central is found. On it there are six boards that have represented the figures of prehispanic gods as Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, Macuilxochitl and other zooantropomofic beings.
• La Gran Greca
  North of the Juego de Pelota Central, it is found the Gran Greca. More tan a building, it is a great walled platform on a staggered fret shape, unique on its type and monumentality in Mesoamerica. It is used as base for several buildings, among them: two Juegos de Pelota and two temples.
• La Gran Xicalcoliuqui
  It is identified by an spiral wall, that is associated with Quetzalcoatl due to its shape, just like the other Juegos de Pelota, of which 17 had been identified up to date.

OLD TOWN TAJIN

The archaeological site “El Tajín”, whose name in Totonac language means thunder, was based in the lower area of the Papanteca Mountains. It is located in Papantla de Olarte, in the north of the State of Veracruz, at 20º 28' and 35' ' north latitude and 97º 22' and 39' ' west longitude. “El Tajín” is located in the Sierra Madre Oriental, on a mountainous set that receives the name of Sierra de Papantla, with hills of low height and valley predominance.

The ancient city of El Tajin was developed in the late Classic horizon and reached its peak in the transition to the Post Classic, between the years 800 and 1150 A.D. Archeological investigations indicate that the city ran political/religious relations and its economy was supported by the taxes paid on goods and services by surrounding towns.

The core of the ancient city, which is currently open to the public, can be divided into five parts corresponding to different elevation levels: the Plaza del Arroyo Group, the Central Zone, the Great Xicalcoliuhqui, El Tajin Chico, and the Conjunto de las Columnas.