Many major university libraries in the US and Mexico have made the book available for search. If you are affiliated with a university (student or professor), you can log in via proxy and download the entire book as a PDF through HathiTrust or the university’s digital stacks.
Before searching for the PDF, it is crucial to understand the author’s weight in Mexican archaeology. Ignacio Marquina (1885–1972) was an architect by trade, not an anthropologist. This distinction is what makes his work revolutionary. While archaeologists like Alfonso Caso focused on artifacts and burials, Marquina looked at the bones of the cities themselves: the pyramids, plazas, and ballcourts.
Marquina served as the Director of Monumentos Prehispánicos for the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). He approached ruins like Teotihuacán, Chichén Itzá, Monte Albán, and El Tajín as an architect would a blueprint. His magnum opus, "Arquitectura Prehispánica" (often published in two volumes as Textos and Láminas), contains over 1,000 pages and hundreds of fold-out plans, elevations, and reconstructions.
Resumen breve
Contenido y estructura
Valoración crítica
Audiencia recomendada
Accesibilidad y derechos
Breve conclusión
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While modern archaeology is cautious about "reconstructing" ruins, Marquina’s artistic interpretations of how cities looked at their peak are invaluable for visualization. His drawings of Tula’s Atlanteans and Palenque’s Palace remain the gold standard for reference.
A. The Superposition of Structures One of Marquina’s most significant contributions was documenting how Mesoamerican cultures built new temples over old ones. He provided detailed illustrations and excavations showing that pyramids (like the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan or the Pyramid of the Sun) were not single structures, but layers of construction spanning centuries.
B. Regional Classifications The book divides Mexico into cultural regions, analyzing the architectural differences between: Many major university libraries in the US and
C. Construction Materials and Techniques Marquina provided technical breakdowns of how these buildings were made without modern machinery. He detailed: