Cholula Pyramid
Mexico

Cholula pyramid.

Click to see Teotihuacan or visit Mexico City or Chichen Itza

The largest pyramid (and monument) in the world is not the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt but that grassy mound pictured above with a church on top in Cholula, Puebla state, Mexico.

It's the Great Pyramid of Cholula, a temple/pyramid built over hundreds of years from 3rdC BC to 9thC AD and dedicated to the famous Mexican bird-god Quetzalcoatl.

Cholula and volcano of Popocatepetl. Click to see Teotihuacan pyramid complex.

Although the Great Pyramid of Cholula is bigger in volume than its Egyptian competitors, the Great Pyramid of Giza is 138.8 m (455 feet) high while Cholula goes up to a mere 66 m (217 ft). Here it can be seen against its inspiration, the volcano of Popocatepetl (5,426m), just 45 miles (70 kms) from Mexico City.

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The Great Pyramid of Cholula has been little excavated and hardly restored due to the placing of the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (Church of Our Lady of the Cures) on top of the pyramid by the Spanish in 1594. A common practice of the Catholic church in the Middle Ages was to reuse ancient religious sites as Catholic ones, and this one has become a popular pilgrimage destination.

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