After the Conquest, the Avila brothers built their house on this old ceremonial site. After their eviction in 1566, it was razed to the ground and the land deliberately sullied and being put to use as a garbage dump.

In the nineteenth century, the Porrua bookshop was built on this site, on top of ramps decorated with sculpted dragons. In 1900, a canai was bored through the buried pyramids to expel sewage from the city centre. Numerous pre-Columbian remains were dug up, but the temple continued to go unnoticed. The dig now spans an area of 600 to 800 metre which is still expanding, encroaching on the nearby buildings.

The excavations yielded more riches than expected: a total of 7,000 items have been retrieved. Not just one but seven pyramids were discovered, built on top of the other between 1375 and 1502.