We took a short day trip out to Xochicalco - the pyramid ruins on top of a mountain south of Cuernavaca and visited the Xochicalco Museum which is small but a very nice museum with lots of information and some interesting artifacts. After about 45 minutes of wandering around the museum and studying the model of Xochicalco we headed up to the ruins. There is ample parking for a number of cars on both sides of the ruins. Xochicalco in the native language Nahuatl means "place of the House of Flowers" and was constructed during the Epiclassic period between 700 and 900 A.D. as the central part of a city complex that extended to the surround hilltops. The views from this hill are far reaching in all directions and is quite breathtaking. In it's heyday Xochicalco had many great constructions, highways, ramparts, housing developments and roads that connected Xochicalco to the surrounding communities and towns. We wondered around the back side of the site first and ended up at the underground observatory where, in a series of 30 something tunnels there is a place where a hole has been designed into the ceiling for the sun to enter the chamber during very certain days of the year and the day we were there was the first day in the cycle when the sub shown directly into the dark chamber. There was a guard there who showed up around in the dark with a flashlight. Afterward we wondered about through a game court and up into the side ruins where there are a series of three small pyramids and other ruins as well as an interesting animal ramp where the stones are carved with animal motifs.

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Epiclassic (AD 800 - 1000) - term used to refer to the events that characterize the transition between the end of the Late Classic period and the beginning of the Postclassic.  Among the important markers of this period is evidence for the "collapse" of Classic Maya culture in the southern lowlands, including frequent images of warfare and sacrifice.  At the sites of Dos Pilas, Aguateca, and Punta de Chimino in the Petexbatún region of Guatemala there is evidence for defensive fortifications in respons to large-scale warfare as well as significant environmental degradation.  By contrast, in the northern lowlands (the Yucatán Peninsula), this period sees the flourishing of Maya culture at sites like Uxmal, Sayil, and Chichén Itzá.  Here, the Epiclassic period is marked by increasing evidence for contact with cultures from the Gulf Coast and Central Mexico.
    In central Mexico, the Epiclassic is the period duiring which important centers like Cholula, Cacaxtla, and Xochicalco rise to prominence.  There is evidence for a continuity of rituals similar to those practiced at Teotihuacan.  Many Epiclassic centers may have had populations that included the descendents of prominent lineages and refugees from Teotihuacan.  (this info from here)