MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—BBC News reports that an altar and a pot containing human ashes and 13 incense burners have been found some 13 feet below ground level in Mexico City’s Plaza Garibaldi by Mara Becerra of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and her colleagues. The altar, thought to have been used to mark the cycles of life with rituals, has been dated to sometime between 1521, when the Spanish conquered Tenochtitlan, and 1610. Becerra thinks the altar was placed in a courtyard within the home of a Mexica family in order to hide it from the Spanish. The dwelling had a large room connected by a corridor to five smaller rooms, one of which may have been a kitchen. To read about a golden eagle relief recently uncovered near Tenochtitlan's Templo Mayor, go to "Around the World: Mexico."
