In 1785, an official stumbled upon by chance the Pyramid of the Niches, in the highlands of the municipality of Papantla, in the low mountains that lead from the Sierra Madre Oriental to the Gulf coast near the Tecolutla River. It is unclear who built the city, but the site was known to the local Totonac, whose ancestors may also have built it, as El Tajín, which was said to mean "of thunder or lightning bolt". Related to this is their belief that twelve old thunderstorm deities, known as Tajín, still inhabit the ruins. Anyway, between 600 and 1200 C.E. it was a prosperous city, one of the largest and most important of the Classic era of Mesoamerica, that controlled much of what is now modern Veracruz state, advantaged by its strategic position along the old trade routes.
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