In 1978, workmen in downtown Mexico City accidentally discovered a beautifully preserved monolithic sculpture at the foot of the main temple of the Aztecs. This important find led to a massive excavation that continues today under the direction of archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.

The great temple, now known as the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan symbolized the axis mundi, the Aztec center of the world, where the sky, the earth, and underworld met. In Life and Death in the Templo Mayor, Matos Moctezuma uses his unmatched familiarity with the archaeological details to present a concise and well-supported development of this theme.