Mexico to Divert Train Route After Cave Art Discovery
Mexico will reroute a planned $8 billion high-speed passenger train from Mexico City to Querétaro after archaeologists documented 16 pre-Hispanic artworks—paintings and petroglyphs—along the proposed route, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). INAH announced the discovery last week, though initial findings were made in January, and President Claudia Sheinbaum said the route would be diverted to preserve the site. The works include rock paintings on two cliffs in Hidalgo dated to the Postclassic period (900 CE to the Spanish conquest in 1521) and other figures described as “prehistory,” or 4,000 years old or more; imagery includes a figure holding an Aztec chīmalli shield and another resembling the rain deity Tlaloc. INAH also linked the iconography to the late era of the Toltec city of Tula and noted additional nearby finds, including an altar with human remains dated to 900–1150 CE announced in March at Tula Chico.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Restitution Tangles, Warped Art Routes, Museum Reboots