Xelhua—The Giant Who Built Teotihuacan, And The Largest Pyramid On Earth
If we take a look at Ancient Aztec Mythology, we will find a treasure trove of incredible stories and fascinating accounts of a time when giants ruled the Earth.
Aztec Mythology, like many other mythologies around the world, mentions how thousands of years ago, giants ruled the earth. Aztec legends explain, among many other things, how the Great Pyramid of Cholula and the City of Gods—Teotihuacan were built, not by ordinary men, but by a Giant. This giant was called Xelhua, who lived during the time of the universal deluge. According to Ancient Aztec Mythology, the ancient complex of Cholula, especially the construction of the Tlachihualtépetl Pyramid (hill made of earth) was attributed to Xelhua. According to mythology, in ancient times, the earth was inhabited by giants, but after a massive flood, all remaining giants died off. Xelhua who survived, built what we know today as Cholula, and the largest archaeological site of a pyramid (temple) in the New World, as well as the largest pyramid known to exist in the world today. Xelhua wanted to build a massive structure so hight, that it reached the sky. But Tonacatecutli, father of all the gods— and the creator and fertility god, worshiped for peopling the earth and making it fruitful—saw this as an offense and launched a stone from the heavens that killed many builders causing the construction to come to a halt. Ancient Aztec Mythology tells us that; “Before the great inundation which took place 4,800 years after the erection of the world, the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants, all of whom either perished in the inundation or were transformed into fishes, save seven who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of the giants, called Xelhua, surnamed the ‘Architect,’ went to Cholula, where, as a memorial of the Tlaloc which had served for an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in the form of a pyramid. He ordered bricks to be made in the province of Tlalmanalco, at the foot of the Sierra of Cecotl, and in order to convey them to Cholula, he placed a file of men who passed them from hand to hand.
The gods beheld, with wrath, an edifice the top of which was to reach the clouds. Irritated at the daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire on the pyramid. Numbers of the workmen perished.
The work was discontinued, and the monument was afterward dedicated to Quetzalcoatl.” Xelhua was one of the seven Giants according to Aztec culture, and he was the one who, according to accounts, erected not only the great pyramid of Cholula but one of the most mysterious ancient cities in Central America; Teotihuacan. Today, the great Pyramid of Cholula is mostly overgrown and surmounted by a Catholic church built by the conquistadores, who, without even knowing, erected the structure on what would later turn out to be the most massive pyramid on Earth.
The Great Pyramids of Cholula is said to have enshrined a meteorite fragment, a relic of the Deluge “which had fallen from heaven wrapped in a ball of flame.” As noted by ancient Aztec mythology, before the Great Pyramid of Cholula was finished, “fire fell upon it, causing the death of its builders and the abandonment of the work.” The original caption in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, to a native illustration of the Cholula temple read, “Nobles and lords, here you have your documents, the mirror of your past, the history of your ancestors, who, out of fear for a deluge, constructed this place of refuge or asylum for the possibility of the recurrence of such a calamity” (Nuttall, 269).
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