Ancient city in Mexico, the capital of the Toltec s, which flourished in the 10th12th centuries.
Its exact location is uncertain; the archaeological site now designated Tula, near the town of that name in Hidalgo state, has been the choice of historians, but other scholars identify Tula with what is now usually called Teotihuacán . The Tula site suggests a city that had a population in the tens of thousands. The major civic centre consists of a plaza bordered by a five-stepped pyramid, two other pyramids, and two ball courts. Tula's art and architecture are strikingly similar to those of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán , and its artistic themes suggest that the Aztecs' concept of themselves as warrior-priests of the sun god was borrowed directly from Tula.