(adapted from Millon, et al. 1973: ‘map 1’; Sugiyama and Cabrera
1999, 2007:113; Sugiyama 2005:21; Serrano Sanchez 2003:52).
Scales are relative to each map.
When does a map become a great map? Mapping is the archaeological touchstone of mediation. As a speciality, cartography has come to a consensus as to what properties of the material world are selected for visualization - and ipso facto what to sieve away through the grid paper. The action of mediating with maps. Over the course of five centuries of mapping the same ruins we have arrived at some key goals for mediation, some key principles in modern map design:
* compression of data
* microc-macro combination
* optical consistency/scale
* fungibility/intercalation
* light-dark contrast/presentation
These lead to the great success of the map of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP). Why it is diagnostic of archaeological mapping. And what makes a map a good map. The precision and detail of putting on paper what was there in the 1960's at Teotihuacan is no doubt part of this. The team found and mapped the boundaries of the site - a monumental undertaking in surface survey. But it is how the map serves the goals of the future that, I believe, makes it great. All subsequent depictions of the site, from 3-D fly-throughs of a virtual La Ventilla compound to stratigraphic profiles from a trench in the ciudadela, may be inserted to 'hang' on the scaffolding of the TMP map. Like a house, it is a media architecture built for future generations. The map is also, contrary to the crisscrossed appearance of its analog and static lines, fluid. It can infinitely expand its grid outwards to cover macro features; conversely, it can fold the micro details of burial offerings deep within the pyramid of the moon into its sliding scale. It is mercurial media at its best.
SOURCES for adapted maps:
Millon, René, Bruce Drewitt and George Cowgill. 1973. The Teotihuacán Map. Vol. 1 part 2. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Serrano Sánchez, Carlos. Editor. 2003. Contextos Arqueológicos y Osteoloía del Barrio de La Ventilla (Teotihuacan 1992-1994). México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Sugiyama, Saburo. 2005. Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership: materialization of state ideology at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sugiyama, Saburo and Ruben Cabrera. 1999. Proyecto Arqueológico de la Pyrámide de la Luna. Arqueología 21:19-34.
____ 2007. The Moon Pyramid Project and the Teotihuacan state polity: A brief summary of the 1998–2004 excavations Ancient Mesoamerica 18:109-25.
 by Timothy Webmoor
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