One of Teotihuacan's defining architectural practices was the construction of new buildings over earlier ones. Most of the structures that survive today stand atop previous architectural layers. No other complex at the site illustrates this principle more clearly than the group known as the Overlapping Buildings.

Murals and shrines

The buildings within the complex preserve remnants of murals decorated with geometric motifs. Unlike those at Tepantitla or Atetelco, these murals are not figurative—they do not depict deities, human figures, or processions—but instead consist of abstract compositions of scrolls and interlaced forms arranged with strict symmetry. This iconography suggests affinities with visual traditions of cultures from the Gulf of Mexico. One of the platforms also preserves inlaid jade ornaments—a material of considerable symbolic and commercial value, brought from beyond the valley.

At the center of the Plaza of the Overlapping Altars stands a shrine decorated on all four sides, including its talud and tablero moldings. This arrangement suggests a circular ritual movement around the structure, rather than an exclusively frontal relationship with it. The continuity of decoration across every side—not just the main facade—distinguishes the shrine from most other structures at Teotihuacan.

What makes this complex distinctive

What distinguishes the Overlapping Buildings from the rest of the site is not their scale or decoration—it is what they reveal about the Teotihuacan construction method, made visible here with unusual clarity. At this complex, archaeologists have exposed multiple building phases without fully restoring any of them, allowing visitors to appreciate layers of time: a building within another building, one floor above another, a city folded inside its own history.

The Avenue of the Dead Complex

The Overlapping Buildings form part of a broader architectural compound: the Avenue of the Dead Complex, which extends along the stretch of the avenue between the Pyramid of the Sun and the San Juan River. Throughout this sector, palaces and temples associated with the political, administrative, and civic-religious functions of the Teotihuacan state were constructed alongside residential compounds occupied by the city's elite. Researchers have suggested that from the Tlamimilolpa Phase onward—around 225–350 CE—this complex may have functioned as one of the principal seats of Teotihuacan's government.

Visiting today

Access is open during regular site hours. The complex is ideally visited after the Citadel, crossing the San Juan River bridge and proceeding north along the Avenue of the Dead. Here, there are no monumental staircases to climb or great heights to reach. The route unfolds entirely at ground level, allowing for an unhurried observation of wall details, traces of paint, and the stratigraphic cuts deliberately left exposed by archaeologists. This is a complex that rewards slow attention—one of the few places in Teotihuacan where the city seems to speak in a quieter voice.