Templo Mayor was one the principal temples of Tenochtitlan, the former capital of the Aztec empire. Built sometime after 1325 CE, the structure was dedicated to two Aztec deities, Huitzilopochtli the god of war and Tlaloc the god of rain and agriculture. The temple was surrounded by a serpent wall and the entire structure would have been brightly painted. Templo Mayor was destroyed by the Spanish in 1521 C.E. to make way for construction of a new cathedral. The ruins were buried and largely forgotten until their rediscovery in the 1970's.