Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Sun is among the strongest evidence that monumental masonry was invented more than once in human history, independently. Thousands of years after the Egyptian pyramids and with no contact between them, Mesoamerica builds its own pyramid language — and that language is structurally different.

The Egyptian pyramid is a smoothly sloping mass; the Teotihuacan pyramid is a stack of stepped platforms, each tier carrying a distinctive profile: talud-tablero. The 'talud' is an inward-sloping wall surface, the 'tablero' a vertical, framed horizontal panel set on top of it. This sloped-then-flat rhythm both stabilises the structure by stepping it back tier by tier and creates a strong texture of light and shadow and a façade surface — a 'screen' suited to being plastered, painted, and carved. The core is mud-brick and rubble fill; the outer skin is faced with stone and lime plaster.

The structure, about 65 metres high, is not a burial monument but a vast ceremonial platform; a temple once rose at its summit, and the 'Avenue of the Dead' passing before it binds the whole city into an axial composition. Teotihuacan proves that monumental architecture did not radiate from a single centre — a masonry tradition with its own material and profile could arise wholly independently of the Old World. Talud-tablero will become the shared grammar of later Mesoamerican architecture, the Maya included.