The lost instruments of Teotihuacan will soon be heard again

last December Arnd Adje Both, a researcher at Huddersfield University, in Britain, stood on top of the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan, in Mexico, and blew into a conch-shell trumpet, sounding a note that echoed in the plaza far below. Later this year—covid-19 permitting—he hopes to return with a group of colleagues to conduct an aural examination of the site using replicas of the ancient instruments dug up there.Teotihuacan is a mysterious place. Once home to more than 100,000 people, at its zenith around 1,500 years ago it was among the biggest cities in the world. Its inhabitants, though, had no known system of writing. Even the city’s original name is unknown. “Teotihuacan”, meaning “birthplace of the gods”, is what the deserted settlement was called by the Aztecs, who took over control of what is now central Mexico in about 1300, some 650 years after the city was abandoned. All that is known about Teotihuacan’s inhabitants and their culture is what archaeologists have pieced together from the remaining buildings and other artefacts.