Metro Talismán

Metro Talismán is most famous for a discovery made during it’s construction. Like at much better known Metros Pino Suárez and Balderas, workers excavating the site in the late 1970s revealed reminders of the area’s much longer history. Here though, they found remains believed to be 12,000 years old. The fossil remains were of a mature Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi).

During the Pleistocene, or Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago, the Valley of Mexico held several giant lakes and swamps. The area was home to bison, saber-toothed tigers, dromedaries, sloths, giant armadillos, mastodons, and mammoths, among other creatures.

With the discovery the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), carried out extensive research on the discovery. INAH experts calculated that the creature was four meters high and had died some 10 to 12,000 years ago.

The remains were put on display inside the station and have been viewed by tens of thousands of passengers since the station opened in 1981. The display is near the eastern entrance.

In fact, Metro Talismán takes its name from the mammoth. It’s considered a harbinger and symbol of good fortune in many cultures around the world. The avenue out front honors it, too. The neighborhoods that rely on the station are all former lands of the Aragón Hacienda, which was centered a bit to the south and east.

Surrounding almost all of the station is a former industrial area where some manufacturing still takes place. Most prominent is the giant Unilever plant that is directly west of the station.