Launching his new book, “A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area, The Lost Civilization of Teuchitlán,” at Guadalajara’s Paleontology Museum this week, Reporter columnist and cave explorer John Pint described his initial encounter with the late archaeologist Phil Weigand, the discoverer of Jalisco’s most famous ruins.
“In 1997, I heard rumors about an American archaeologist living in the town of Etzatlán, 26 kilometers northwest of Teuchitlán,” Pint told a captive audience. “Tracking down a foreigner in a small Mexican town is easy and this is how I first met the Weigands. One of the endearing characteristics of Phil was his total lack of pretentiousness and his willingness to share his discoveries with anyone who would listen – and I do mean anyone, even the humblest rancher or laborer.”
Pint explained that he was amazed to find Weigand’s house filled with faithful replicas of 2,000-year-old clay models from Guachimontones that had been sold to tourists from the United States. Many of them eventually ended up in museums in Chicago and New York, allowing Weigand to have duplicates made.
“I still find these maquetas fascinating,” Pint told his audience. “They show musicians, ball players, dancers and folks rubbing shoulders with their neighbors and playing with their dogs. We see that the Guachimontones were not sterile monuments for show, but vibrant, popular places where the action was in those days.”
Pint also screened rare photos of what the Guachimontones looked like 30 years ago. “There was no museum in Teuchitlán in those days,” he said. “Instead, we found a table and two shelves inside the town hall, piled high with dusty, but ever so intriguing objects unearthed by the local people plowing their fields.”
Also speaking at the launch was archaeologist Rodrigo Esparza, who said the slim paperback is, for the moment, “the most up-to-date publication available” on Jalisco’s famed circular pyramids and the people who built them.
“I would like to tell you a bit about the author,” said Esparza, while projecting an image of two helmeted cave explorers inside a large, jet-black room from whose ceiling hung long, razor-sharp shards of obsidian.
The archaeologist explained that the photo had been taken deep inside one of Mexico’s very few underground obsidian mines, located near Mázatepec.
“This mine contained dark green obsidian, highly valued 2,000 years ago. Phil Weigand wanted to have a map of the place, but when we had ventured just a little way into it, we were greeted by utter blackness and the stench of vampire-bat guano. Weigand then turned to me and said, ‘I know a guy who would love to crawl deep into this hole and map it for us.’ It was at that mine, one week later, where I first met John and his wife Susy.”
Both Pint and Esparza made references to the frontispiece of the new guidebook, a sketch of the Guachimontones by British artist and explorer Adela Breton, drawn during her visit to Teuchitlán in 1896.
“I found the map on the internet and John managed to talk the Bristol Museum in England into sending us a high-resolution copy of it,” said Esparza,
Thanks to Pint and Esparza’s correspondence with the Bristol Museum, next year the Jalisco Secretariat of Culture plans to bring to Guadalajara the exhibit of Adela Breton’s paintings, sketches and photographs which is on show in the English city until May 2016.
“A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones” is available from Sandi Bookstore in Guadalajara (33-3121-0863), or by mail from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..">.