MEXICO CITY (AP) — The almighty eagle perched on a cactus while devouring a serpent on Mexico’s flag hints at the myth behind the foundation of the country’s capital.
It’s a divine sign in an ancient legend, according to which the god Huitzilopochtli asked a group called the Mexica to leave their homeland in search of a place to establish a new city.
It took some 175 years before they spotted the sacred omen and established the city of Tenochtitlan in 1325 where Mexico City stands today.
How the eagle, the cactus and the serpent became an emblem and endured through the European conquest is the focus of a new exhibition. “A coat of arms, an emblem, a symbol of identity,” runs through Dec. 15 at the Old City Hall in downtown Mexico City.
The exhibit is among the government’s activities marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Mexica capital.
“Recognizing Tenochtitlan doesn’t mean recalling a dead past, but rather the living heartbeat that still beats beneath our city,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said during an official ceremony in July. “It was the center of an Indigenous world that built its own model of civilization — one in harmony with the Earth, the stars, and its gods and goddesses.”
Fragments of that civilization lie underneath the Old City Hall, the current seat of Mexico City’s government.
Built by order of Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés in 1522, its construction used stones from ancient Mexica sacred sites. The building has been renewed over time, but its halls have witnessed centuries of governance and symbolism.
“Holding the exhibition in this City Hall, a place of decisions and memory, is a way to recognize the history of those who once inhabited it and how its transformations still echo in Mexico City’s …