Monte Alban and Mitla (Yes, More Ruins!)

Monte Alban and Mitla (Yes, More Ruins!)

Ok, so hands up – who amongst you knew (or had even heard of) the Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs?  For us as school kids, much as the Incas hogged the limelight in South America, so did the Aztecs in Mesoamerica and these other civilisations didn’t get a mention.  So it was interesting to discover more about their culture and visit some ancient sites.  Unfortunately, the Olmecs or “rubber people” (the earliest civilisation to the region, which also used rubber extensively – as opposed to being very bendy) lived too near to the hot and humid coast for us to warrant an expedition to see the ruins they had left behind.  But the Zapotecs and Mixtecs were rather along our cooler, hillier route!  In fact the Zapotecs were the prominent culture in the pre-hispanic era in the Oaxaca region.  Over a number of centuries they founded and expanded their capital at Monte Alban.  We took a taxi to visit as it was a steep, sometimes narrow road uphill.  But at the top we found the remains of what once must have been a thriving and powerful city.  At its peak, it’s thought to have had 20,000 inhabitants.  Monte Alban is quite a feat of engineering, as the hill had been levelled off to provide the perfect location for an urban stronghold.  As further demonstration of the power of the Zapotec people, impressive temple pyramids, palaces, plazas, a ball court (every Mesoamerican city had to have one!), residences and an astronomical observatory (used for time measurement and rituals) were constructed. 

However, around 700 BC (approximately 1200 years after they had founded the city), the Zapotecs started to leave and most of them moved 50km east to Mitla.  We were impressed with the Mitla ruins which are now in the centre of a small, sleepy town.  It is unique in Mesoamerica for its fine masonic fretwork – beautiful geometric patterns had been created using finely cut stone pieces, which were then fitted together without using any mortar.  The palaces were accessed using narrow passageways, leading to a central courtyard, surrounded by rooms or halls.  We could still see parts of the intricate frescoes painted in red on the lintels supporting some of the rooms.  Mitla would have looked very beautiful and imposing in its day.

Final mention goes to the Mixtecs.  In Oaxaca we visited the excellent Cultural Museum in the former convent of Santo Domingo.  Amongst the exhibits were a great number of artifacts recovered from Monte Alban.  Although the site remained pretty much uninhabited after the departure of the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs used it for religious ceremonies and also to bury their dead, re-using the Zapotec tombs.  In one particular tomb (tomb 7, now located behind the car park at Monte Alban!), archaeologists discovered a real treasure trove of Mixtec grave goods.  The beautiful, if macabre, mosaic skull (a human skull decorated with a mosaic of turquoise and shell pieces), as well as a small rock crystal goblet (most likely used in rituals and polished to a flawless finish) were the highlights of the collection for me.  But there was a wealth of other offerings – exquisite gold necklaces; finely worked bone carvings with Mixtec iconography; ceramic vessels; and other items of semi-precious stones.

Of course, the ancient civilizations of both, Zapotecs and Mixtecs (as well as the good old Aztecs) were wiped out with the Spanish conquest in the 1500s, but they left behind them a fascinating historical footprint.