OXACA - Part 2: MUSEO de las CULTURAS - MONTE ALBAN - MITLA)

 Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca  

The former Dominican monastery attached to the Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is now home to the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca.  Visiting the museum, followed the next day by a trip to the ruins of Monte Alban, and two weeks later to the ruins of Mitla helped us better understand the history of the people and the land of Oaxaca.  I consulted many internet sources in the attempt to get an understandable timeline, and hopefully got most of it right.

The museum itself is stunning, with wide open spaces, soaring arches, stone walls and columns thick enough to withstand centuries of earthquakes.  

It covers the tradition from nomadic peoples to settled agricultural societies, displaying artifacts dating back thousands of years.  We saw tools linked to the Olmecs, often called the "Mother Culture" of Mesoamerica.

One of the museum highlights is the treasure recovered from Tomb 7 at Monte Alban: Zapotec tombs later used by Mixtec elites.  The collection includes famous golden pectorals, turquoise- covered skulls, delicate bone carvings, jewelry, and ceremonial objects. 

Monte Alban

Monte Alban was one of the earliest true cities in Mesoamerica: an intentionally planned capital where Zapotec rulers centralized political and religious power and demanded 'tribute' from surrounding valleys.  There is evidence of sophisticated engineering, organized government, military conquest, and social hierarchy.

Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso led major excavations at the site beginning in 1932.  His work helped demonstrate not only the sophistication of Oaxaca's ancient civilizations, but more importantly, helped to strengthen Mexico's understanding of its indigenous heritage by bringing wider recognition to those civilizations.

The Monte Alban Heritage Center has a free downloadable audio guide that helps visitors understand five of the main buildings and another for 100 pesos that covers eleven buildings on the site.  They are an interesting listen.

LEVELLING A MOUNTAIN TOP

Around 500 CE, Zapotec leaders chose a strategic mountaintop overlooking three valleys and began transforming it into a ceremonial and political centre.  Using stone chisels, obsidian and basalt tools, fire, water, wedges, and thousands of workers over three hundred years, they flattened the mountain summit, filled in ravines, built retaining walls, and created a city covering ~60,000 square meters.  At its peak, Monte Alban supported a population of around 30,000 people.

Standing on the South Platform and overlooking the grounds leaves us in awe of the ingenuity and determination of a people who built this.  The sweeping views over what we learn are three valleys demonstrate the strategic location and must have inspired people in their everyday lives.  And the scale of the Grand Plaza makes one feel small indeed.

To place it in perspective: the Great Pyramids of Giza were already ancient by the time Monte Alban was founded, trade routes linking Asia and Europe were starting to develop, and Angkor Wat would not be built until centuries after Monte Alban had already been abandoned.

I tried unsuccessfully to find renderings of what the city looked like during its glory days.  One source described the buildings as coated in lime plaster and painted in vivid reds, yellows, and greens.  More than 2,000 terraces carved into the hillsides supported homes, gardens, and agriculture, while incense smoke drifted across plazas capable of holding thousands of people during ceremonies.

Evidence shows that Zapotec leaders and warriors went far and wide to conquer people to add to their land and riches.  

I had looked forward to seeing a section of the ruins that has a collection of stones, referred to as "The Dancers", thinking of joyful celebration, but was shocked to learn that they are now widely believed to depict captured and possibly mutilated prisoners. The naked figures are shown without genitals, thus illustrating one form of pain and degradation that these prisoners suffered.

In addition, the walls of Building J documented the Zapotec military warriors' subjugation over other peoples in over forty stone slabs that illustrated the upside-down heads of rulers who had been killed - where and the territory conquered.  A not-so-subtle message to all.

Building J was different from all the others in that it had a five-sided arrowhead shape and was placed on the diagonal (rather than the rest of the buildings with a rectangular shape and a north-south alignment).  It was an observatory temple, built around 100 BCE.

The photo below of building J is used with permission from WikiCommons, Creative Commons Attribution, 4.0 International license

Before leaving, we seek out the ball court, as we are familiar with ones from Mayan ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula.  There are numerous differences both in structure, gameplay and meaning/purpose.  Briefly, and in part, the Zapotec courts had no stone rings, had end zones, sloped walls and often functioned as conflict resolution and even ceremonial sacrifice.  The  Mayan courts had stone rings, were open-ended, and walls could be straight or sloped.  Finally, the games in Mayan culture were closely associated with mythology, death, rebirth and the underworld.

After strolling the grounds in the hot sun, we were ready for some food and drink at the on-site restaurant and a final look at artifacts in the attached museum.

By 900 BCE, the Zapotec people had largely abandoned Monte Alban and dispersed into the surrounding valleys, first Yagul, then Mitla, and leaving behind what became something of a ghost city.  Centuries later, the Mixtecs came to control the site, not primarily as a population center, but as a sacred burial place.  Archaeologists were initially puzzled that Tomb 7, a Zapotec-built tomb that contained Mixtec treasures and burials.

PREHISTORIC CAVES OF YAGUL & MITLA - UNESCO World Heritage Site

We didn't get to the caves, but knowing of them helps connect Monte Alban and Mitla.  At Yagul, 10,000-year-old squash seeds have been found, ancient corn no bigger than a finger, beans and ashes of ancient cooking fires.  Petroglyphs, rock art and stone tools are there too.

There are over 280 caves on the site, some of which are accessible to hikers.  

The Next Zapotec Chapter - LYOBAA (Now Known as Mitla)

What is now Mitla was called Lyobaa by the Zapotec people, meaning "a place of the dead, a place of rest".  As the nobility, priests and rulers left Monte Alban, they came south to this place, and it became an important holy city, a sacred political compound, swirling with the prestige and mystique of ancestors, death and the underworld.

The tombs were deep in the ground, and above them were built the ceremonial and political spaces that we see as the ruins of today.  Recently, ground-penetrating radar has mapped a vast underground labyrinth beneath the site that had been sealed off and built on top of by Colonial authorities.

The two tombs that we can see were excavated from 1900-1902, but had been raided before that.  Research showed that Tomb 1 had a huge monolithic column to support the roof and Tomb 2 had a mural painting on the interior lintel.  Funerary tradition of the time dictated consecutive burials.  When the next family member died, the existing remains were moved to the side to make room.

One of the tombs we can see from above.

Over time, the Zapotec and Mixtec people joined together through strategic alliances, intermarriage, conquest, and the sharing of art and religious ideas, and so this mainly Zapotec architectural structure gradually showed the influence of Mixtec art and geometry.

Here are mosaics, the like of which we have never seen.  Stone patterns in walls, thousands of individual pieces of hard volcanic rock, chiselled so precisely with stone tools that they fit together without mortar.  We have seen these patterns before ... woven into the Zapotec rugs made and sold today.  There are literally thousands of different designs.

One of the most impressive sights is the "Hall of Columns".  These six giant columns of rock supported a heavy roof of timber and thatch to create a covered space.  They were moved and set in place without the use of tools, wheels, or animals.  They are in the most decorated and private part of the structure.  Discussion continues today about the purpose of this space, and thoughts are: for rituals, receiving elites, political negotiations, ancestor ceremonies, funerary rites and/or sacred gatherings.

The hall of columns leads to a section of walled-off rooms that created privacy and were used by only a select few.  We were able to climb the stairs and go into these beautifully decorated spaces.

Another wonder of this site is the lintels that frame the doorways.  They are a single slab, 6 meters in length, weigh 30 tons, and were quarried from the surrounding mountains about 10 km away.  The builders did not have metal tools or draft animals.  It is not yet known how the people managed to move these and raise them onto the walls.

With this fallen lintel, we can see that they too were decorated.

The artifacts excavated from these ruins are scattered in museums throughout Mexico, some in the Museo of Las Culturas, Oaxaca.

In 1544, Spanish Catholic missionaries built the Church of San Pablo Apostol directly over the indigenous center to assert their religious dominance and to intentionally block the Zapotec gateway to the underworld.  

In the photo below, the cross was embedded into the patio leading to the church, and the figure with the cross was outside near a wall of the church.

Two doors and inside the church

Walking the site again reminded us of the ingenuity and skill of ancient peoples.  The remaining ruins and the cacti and ancient mesquite trees standing sentry gave an otherworldly feeling.  

RANDOM PHOTOS

Time and time again, through the weaving, art, food, language, traditions, and ancient stories still told, we realize that these are not vanished civilizations like ancient Egypt or Rome, but that Oaxaca's past and present are strongly connected.