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74-478: The Lambityeco name has several possible origins: from zapoteco "Yehui" that translates as Guava River. From "Lambi" corrupted zapoteco of the Spanish word "alambique or still" and of zapoteco "Pityec" that would translate as mound, hence the name would mean "the still mound" Some claim that Lambityeco is a zapoteco word that means "Hollow Hill" This last interpretation seems to be accepted, considering that this site

148-417: A feather base. The last decorative aspect of this structure is the pectoral, made up of a circular plate superposed to a semi rectangular plate; possibly it represents a shell, jade and obsidian mosaic. An additional and distinctive element is the presence of arms. His right hand holds a vessel from which water or a river flows; the left has a series of rays, hence the name of Thunder or lightning God. Facing

222-489: A marriage that is currently preserved by zapotecos women. Cocijo Cocijo (occasionally spelt Cociyo , otherwise known as Guziu in the Zapotec language) is a lightning deity of the pre-Columbian Zapotec civilization of southern Mexico . He has attributes characteristic of similar Mesoamerican deities associated with rain, thunder and lightning, such as Tlaloc of central Mexico, and Chaac (or Chaak ) of

296-465: A maxtlatl and in his hand holds a human femur. The female is in the same position as the man with a Zapotec hairstyle with entwined ribbons, earrings and round bead necklaces, wears a quechquemitl . In the frieze located on the northern wall, are depicted "Señor 4 cara humana" and "Señora 10 mono" who occupied the oldest Palace between 600 and 625 CE. On the frieze located on the southern wall are depicted "Señor 8 búho" and "Señora 3 turquesa" that utilized

370-553: A native Zapotec name to a colonial-era reference to a Spanish soldier by the name Montalbán or to the Alban Hills of Italy. The ancient Zapotec name of the city is not known, as abandonment occurred centuries before the writing of the earliest available ethnohistorical sources. Being visible from anywhere in the central part of the Valley of Oaxaca, the impressive ruins of Monte Albán attracted visitors and explorers throughout

444-519: A period of 23 to 29 years during four or five generations. The currently visible construction, once the covering materials were removed, has been called the House of the Great Lord. The building constructed with adobe and stucco finished includes a series of rooms covering a surface of 370 square meters, the north patio rooms surely were used as dormitories, the south Patio is larger and elaborated, it

518-642: A secondary center of power for the Zapotecs until the Mixtecs overran it in 1325. The Zapotec civilization was a native ancient culture that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica . Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years. They left archaeological evidence at the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts , magnificent tombs and grave goods including finely worked gold jewelry. Little

592-411: A temple-patio-altar complex. Its rear section was constructed towards the end of the site occupation covers a large area. Under the remains stratified remains of six residences belonging to elite groups and three associated tombs that can be seen climbing up the noted stairway. According to carbon 14 dating those rooms were occupied during an estimated period of 115 years, each house would have been used by

666-529: A tree called a "guaje" ( Leucaena leucocephala ), found in area around the capital city. The name was originally applied to the Valley of Oaxaca by Nahuatl speaking Aztecs. Most of what is known about pre-historic Oaxaca comes from archeological work in the Central Valleys region. Evidence of human habitation dating back to about 11,000 years BCE has been found in the Guilá Naquitz cave near

740-542: Is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (17.043° N, 96.767°W). The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the central section of the Valley of Oaxaca , where the latter's northern Etla , eastern Tlacolula , and southern Zimatlán and Ocotlán (or Valle Grande ) branches meet. The present-day state capital Oaxaca City

814-400: Is believed governors attended public matters here. In the east side a two level, three element altar was built, with the characteristic recessed board zapoteco style. The inner tableau has a series of stucco figures summarizing aspects of Lambityeco governors and their spouses. The people depicted in the tableau are: a man in a horizontal position (face down), with a tipped jaw, has ears, wears

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888-657: Is best known for native ancestral cultures. The most numerous and best known are the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs , but there are sixteen that are officially recognized. These cultures have survived better to the present than most others in Mexico due to the state's rugged and isolating terrain. The name of the state comes from the name of its capital city, Oaxaca. This name comes from the Nahuatl word "Huaxyacac", which refers to

962-531: Is known about the Zapotec origins, unlike other mesoamerican cultures, they did not have a known tradition or legend about their origins, they believed that were born directly from rocks, trees and Jaguars. Archaeologist Marcus Winter points out the following development stages of the culture: The expansion of the Zapotec empire peaked during the Monte Alban II phase. Zapotecs conquered or colonized settlements far beyond The Valley of Oaxaca. This expansion

1036-487: Is known for its small figures called "pretty women" or "baby face." Between 1200 and 900 BCE, pottery was being produced in the area as well. This pottery has been linked with similar work done in La Victoria, Guatemala . Other important settlements from the same time period include Tierras Largas , San José Mogote and Guadalupe , whose ceramics show Olmec influence. The major native language family, Oto-Manguean ,

1110-465: Is located approximately 9 km (6 mi) east of Monte Albán. The partially excavated civic ceremonial center of the Monte Albán site is situated atop an artificially leveled ridge. It has an elevation of about 1,940 m (6,400 ft) above mean sea level and rises some 400 m (1,300 ft) from the valley floor, in an easily defensible location. In addition to the monumental core,

1184-430: Is now largely discredited. These monuments, dating to the earliest period of occupation at the site (Monte Albán I), are now interpreted as representing tortured, sacrificed war prisoners, some identified by name. They may depict leaders of competing centers and villages captured by Monte Albán. (Blanton et al. 1996) Over 300 “Danzantes” stones have been recorded to date, and some of the better preserved ones can be viewed at

1258-538: Is pottery embedded in the dirt floor possibly used for some ceremonies. Between both patios a small room was constructed with east side access to a higher level that allowed construction of a stairway bordered by two walls decorated with recessed boards. Each wall has a large stone and mud mask covered with a thin stucco layer that represents Cocijo , the zapoteco god of rain, thunder and lightning. These identical one meter diameter masks, extraordinary and unique in Zapotec art, allow appreciation of some elements that identify

1332-512: Is the large number of carved stone monuments throughout the plaza. The earliest examples are the so-called "Danzantes" (literally, dancers), found mostly in the vicinity of Building L. These represent naked men in contorted and twisted poses, some of them genitally mutilated. The figures are said to represent sacrificial victims, which explains the morbid characteristics of the figures. The Danzantes feature physical traits characteristic of Olmec culture. The 19th-century notion that they depict dancers

1406-430: Is thought to have been spoken in northern Oaxaca around 4400 BCE and to have evolved into nine distinct branches by 1500 BCE. The Zapotecs were the earliest to gain dominance over the Central Valleys region. The first major dominion was centered in Monte Albán, which flourished from 500 BCE until 750 CE. At its height, Monte Albán was home to some 25,000 people and was the capital city of the Zapotec nation. It remained

1480-407: Is visible in several ways; most important is the sudden change of ceramics found in regions outside the valley. These regions previously had their own unique styles which were suddenly replaced with Zapotec style pottery, indicating that they had become part of the Zapotec empire. The name Zapotec is an exonym coming from Nahuatl tzapotēcah (singular tzapotēcatl ), which means "inhabitants of

1554-674: The Maya civilization . In the Zapotec language , the word cocijo means " lightning ", as well as referring to the deity. Cocijo was the most important deity among the pre-Columbian Zapotecs because of his association with rainfall. He is commonly represented on ceramics from the Zapotec area, from the Middle Preclassic right through to the Terminal Classic . Cocijo was said to be the great lightning god and creator of

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1628-666: The Mediterranean area in antiquity. Although it was previously thought that a similar process of large-scale abandonment, and thus participation in the founding of Monte Albán, occurred at other major chiefly centers, such as Yegüih and Tilcajete, at least in the latter's case this now appears to be unlikely. A recent project directed by Charles Spencer and Elsa Redmond of the American Museum of Natural History in New York has shown that, rather than being abandoned,

1702-532: The Zapotec rain god. The site dates to the Late Classic and Early Postclassic. Lambityeco was part of a zapoteco settlement from the late classic and early Postclassical period in the Oaxaca valley. The extraordinary artistic quality shown in the various urns, engraved bones and mural paintings in tombs as well as by decorated architectonic elements with mosaics in stucco is remarkable. The state of Oaxaca

1776-770: The stucco busts of Cocijo are depicted holding a jar spilling water in one hand and bolts of lightning in the other. During the Classic Period the jaguar was associated, at least partly, with Cocijo. Among the Zapotecs of the Postclassic period, the four 65-day divisions of the 260-day calendar were named cocijos , which implies that there was a different Cocijo associated with each cardinal direction. Religious rites, including bloodletting , were performed to each of these four Cocijos. As payment for bringing rain Cocijo frequently received human sacrifice , mostly in

1850-552: The Central Valleys region of the state, with sedentary villages. The diet developed around this time would remain until the Spanish Conquest, consisting primarily of harvested corn, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash and gourds. Meat was generally hunted and included tepescuintle , turkey, deer, peccary , armadillo and iguana . The oldest known major settlements, such as Yanhuitlán and Laguna Zope are located in this area as well. The latter settlement

1924-589: The Cocijo walls, at the end of the Patio is Tomb 2 with masonry walls forming an antechamber and main chamber. The facade was constructed later; it displays a recessed board with double cornices. The remains of seven adult individuals were discovered inside representing at least four generations. In addition to the remains 144 objects were recovered, containing bat claw vessels, thorn decorated braziers, uncooked vessels, carved bones and five identical molded mud urns representing Cocijo. As per ethnographic data, this would be

1998-603: The God as one of the more commonly represented deities and of the most important in the Zapotec pantheon. The Cocijo image seen in Lambityeco, wears a mask that covers almost all the face; the eyes are framed with a type of goggle; a thick plate in the nose connected to the lower part of the goggles and the mouth mask. Upon the center of the mask in a large feather hairdo and "C glyph"; from the hairdo protrude two tapes adorned in its ends with green stones. The sides have earflaps over

2072-566: The Late Classic (Monte Albán IIIB/IV, c. CE 500–1000), the site's influence outside and inside the valley declined. Elites at several other centers, once part of the Monte Albán state, began to assert their autonomy, including sites such as Cuilapan and Zaachila in the Valle Grande and Lambityeco , Mitla , and El Palmillo in the eastern Tlacolula arm. The latter is the focus of an ongoing project by Gary Feinman and Linda Nicholas of Chicago 's Field Museum (Feinman and Nicholas 2002). By

2146-518: The Main Plaza is delimited by large platforms accessible from the plaza via monumental staircases. On its eastern and western sides, the plaza is similarly bounded by a number of smaller platform mounds, on which stood temples and elite residences, as well as one of two ballcourts known to have existed at the site. A north-south spine of mounds occupies the center of the plaza and similarly served as platforms for ceremonial structures. The majority of

2220-585: The Oaxaca Valley as a result of the gradual weakening and abandonment of Monte Alban, one of those changes is the blossoming of several ceremonial civic centers. Although of lesser scale and political influence Lambityeco was one of them. These establishments retook political leadership and perhaps most of the Monte Alban population. This site sculpted representations unlike those commonly found in Monte Alban document important royalty marriages, source of

2294-562: The Rosario ceramic phase). At that time, San José Mogote was the major population center in the valley and base of a chiefdom that likely controlled much of the northern Etla branch. Perhaps as many as three or four other, smaller chiefly centers controlled other sub-regions of the valley, including Tilcajete in the southern Valle Grande branch and Yegüih in the Tlacolula arm to the east. Competition and warfare seem to have characterized

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2368-488: The Rosario phase. The regional survey data suggests the existence of an unoccupied buffer zone between the San José Mogote chiefdom and those to the south and east. It is within this no-man's land that Monte Albán was founded at the end of the Rosario period and it quickly reached a population estimate of around 5,200 by the end of the following Monte Albán Ia phase (c. 300 BCE). This remarkable population increase

2442-552: The Zapoteco state. This disintegration formed numerous smaller settlements in the Oaxaca Valley during that time; it is believed that the Lambityeco population might have moved to the Yagul site, located a few kilometers west. Lambityeco occupation began around 700 BC., before the Monte Alban foundation, and concluded around 750 AD. The Lambityeco apogee occurred between 600 and 750 AD.; a time in which significant changes took place in

2516-775: The ability of the elites to gain information about the private lives of other citizens would have played a key role in the internal political structure of the settlement. Many of the artifacts excavated at Monte Albán, in over a century of archaeological exploration, can be seen at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City and at the Museo Regional de Oaxaca, located in the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Oaxaca City. The latter museum houses many of

2590-497: The colonial and modern eras. Among others, Guillermo Dupaix investigated the site in the early 19th century CE, J. M. García published a description of the site in 1859, and A. F. Bandelier visited and published further descriptions in the 1890s. A first intensive archaeological exploration of the site was conducted in 1902 by Leopoldo Batres , then General Inspector of Monuments for the Mexican government under Porfirio Diaz . It

2664-592: The day sign Water and it is likely that its meaning in Zapotec is identical, therefore being the appropriate glyph for the rain and storm god. Representations of Cocijo combine elements earth-jaguar and sky-serpent, which are associated with fertility. His eyebrows depict the heavens, his lower lids represent clouds, and his forked serpent's tongue represents a bolt of lightning. At the Late Classic Zapotec archaeological site of Lambityeco in Oaxaca ,

2738-515: The elite were walled with stone and often adorned in painted murals. Civilians lived on residential terraces that coated the slopes of the mountain below the Main Plaza. Such residencies were one or two room adobe brick houses with a central, partially enclosed patio. Monte Albán was not just a fortress or sacred place, but a fully functioning city. The inhabitants had come from the rich agricultural land below Monte Albán and depended greatly on agriculture. Monte Albán became an agricultural center as

2812-529: The end of the Late Classic ( c.  AD 500 –750), and soon thereafter was largely abandoned. Small-scale reoccupation, opportunistic reuse of earlier structures and tombs, and ritual visitations marked the archaeological history of the site into the Colonial period. The etymology of the site's present-day name is unclear. Tentative suggestions regarding its origin range from a presumed corruption of

2886-454: The end of the same period (c. AD 900–1000), the ancient capital was largely abandoned. The once powerful Monte Albán state was replaced by dozens of competing smaller polities, a situation that lasted up to the Spanish conquest. The monumental center of Monte Albán is the Main Plaza, which measures approximately 300 meters by 150 meters. The Main Plaza was created through artificial levelling of

2960-417: The few pictures of prehispanic governors was recovered, located in the facade of Tomb 6 at the Lambityeco archaeological site, in Oaxaca. These are "señor 1 Temblor" and "señora 10 Caña" with an antiquity of more than 1300 years, recovered by the work of National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) specialists. The rescued Lambityeco figures are famous by their realism, as they reveal characteristics of

3034-412: The form of children but also, less frequently, adults. The worship of Cocijo continued into early Colonial times. In the late 1540s, three community leaders of Yanhuitlán were accused of making sacrifices to the deity, including human sacrifices, by the inhabitants of hostile neighbouring villages and were tried by the inquisitor Francisco Tello de Sandoval. Monte Alb%C3%A1n Monte Albán

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3108-555: The great-grandparents and grandparents of first mentioned couple. Each of the masculine figures of the inferior fraises holds a human femur human in their hands; this was the way to represent the right to govern granted by their ancestors. Tomb 6 is in front of this altar, where great lords and their wives were buried. The tomb facade also has a recessed tableau with stucco representation of the faces of "señor 1 Terremoto" and "señora 10 Caña", "señor 8 Muerte" parents. The remains of six individuals accompanied by 186 objects were discovered in

3182-567: The history of occupation of the Monte Albán site was reached with the Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Valley of Oaxaca Project begun by Richard Blanton and several colleagues from the University of Michigan in the early 1970s. Their intensive survey and mapping of the entire site demonstrated the full scale and size of Monte Albán, beyond the limited area which had been explored by Caso. Subsequent seasons of

3256-502: The largest Mesoamerican cities at the time. As its political power grew, Monte Albán expanded militarily, through cooption, and via outright colonization, into several areas outside the Valley of Oaxaca, including the Cañada de Cuicatlán to the north and the southern Ejutla and Sola de Vega valleys. (Feinman and Nicholas 1990) During this period and into the subsequent Early Classic (Monte Albán IIIA phase, c. CE 200–500), Monte Albán

3330-408: The monumental mounds found within the site seemed to be evenly spaced throughout the area. The mounds were thus close enough to each house to easily keep them under surveillance. Hutson also notes that, over time, the style of houses seemed to have changed, becoming more private to those living in the buildings and making it harder for outsiders to obtain information about the residents. These changes in

3404-411: The mountaintop, being covered in white plaster afterwards. The plaza would have had the capacity to hold the entire population of the city for participation in state-sponsored rituals. The site's main civic-ceremonial and elite-residential structures are located around it or in its immediate vicinity. Most of these have been explored and restored by Alfonso Caso and his colleagues. To the north and south

3478-570: The objects discovered in 1932 by Alfonso Caso in Monte Albán's Tomb 7 , a Classic period Zapotec tomb that was opportunistically reused in Postclassic times for the burial of Mixtec elite individuals. Their burials were accompanied by some of the most spectacular burial offerings of any site in the Americas. Monte Albán is a popular tourist destination for visitors to Oaxaca. Its small museum on site displays mostly original carved stones from

3552-546: The periods preceding Monte Albán's founding was a major focus in the late 1960s of the Prehistory and Human Ecology Project started by Kent Flannery of the University of Michigan . Over the following two decades, this project documented the development of socio-political complexity in the valley from the earliest Archaic period (c. 8000–2000 BCE) to the Rosario phase (700–500 BCE) immediately preceding Monte Albán. It set

3626-418: The place of sapote ". The Zapotec referred to themselves by some variant of the term Be'ena'a , which means "The People." The site comprises about 197 mounds within a 117 hectares area; most of the mounds are covered by weeds. The site was occupied from 700 BC, and it apogee matches that of Monte Alban. The site was abandoned around 750 AD., and it also matches the Monte Alban abandonment and disintegration of

3700-669: The pre-eminent Zapotec socio-political and economic center. Founded toward the end of the Middle Formative period at around 500 BC, by the Terminal Formative ( c.  100 BC – AD 200) Monte Albán had become the capital of a large-scale expansionist polity that dominated much of the Oaxacan highlands and interacted with other Mesoamerican regional states, such as Teotihuacan to the north (Paddock 1983; Marcus 1983). The city lost its political pre-eminence by

3774-498: The public was reconstructed at that time. Besides resulting in the excavation of a large number of residential and civic-ceremonial structures and hundreds of tombs and burials, one lasting achievement of the project by Caso and his colleagues was the establishment of a ceramic chronology (phases Monte Albán I through V) for the period between the site's founding in c. 500 BCE to end of the Postclassic period in CE 1521. The investigation of

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3848-666: The rising of the star of Capella at that time, so that a person looking out a doorway on the building would have faced it directly. Capella is significant as its heliacal rising took place within a day of the Sun passing directly overhead over Monte Albán. In design / construction of the structures, earthquakes were also taken into consideration. Thick walls were often used in construction, as well as sloped sides when constructing tall / larger structures. Elite residencies were made up of three to four rooms, encompassing an inner patio and sub-patio tomb accessible via stairway. Classical tombs of

3922-420: The salt consumed in the valley between 600 and 700 AD. The salt was extracted from dirt in the southern part of the site. Lambityeco is a small part of the larger site known as Yeguih, which according to another version it is the Zapotec word for "small hill". The two main structures at Lambityeco are Mound 190 and Mound 195. Mound 190 is an elite residence with the entrance flanked by two imposing Cocijo masks,

3996-453: The same project under the direction of Blanton, Gary Feinman, Steve Kowalewski, Linda Nicholas, and others extended the survey coverage to practically the entire valley, producing an invaluable amount of data on the region's changing settlement patterns from the earliest times to the arrival of the Spanish in CE 1521. As indicated by Blanton's survey of the site, the Monte Albán hills appear to have been uninhabited prior to 500 BCE (the end of

4070-580: The second palace between 625 and 650 CE. Under the altar frieze is access to Tomb No. 6, on the façade are masks "Señor 1 temblor de tierra" and "Señora 10 caña", the last governors Lambityeco. Unfortunately the top level has almost disappeared; it would represent "señor 8 muerte" and "señora 5 Caña" that people buried in Tomb 6 located in front of the altar. At the lower level on the left side appears "señor 4 Cara" and "señora 10 Mono", at their right "señora 3 Turquesa" and "señor 8 Búho". They would respectively be

4144-485: The site grew significantly in population during the periods Monte Albán Early I and Late I (c. 500–300 BCE and 300–100 BCE, respectively). Tilcajete might have actively opposed incorporation into the increasingly powerful Monte Albán state. By the beginning of the Terminal Formative (Monte Albán II phase, c.  100 BCE – CE 200), Monte Albán had an estimated population of 17,200, making it one of

4218-445: The site is characterized by several hundred artificial terraces, and a dozen clusters of mounded architecture covering the entire ridgeline and surrounding flanks. The archaeological ruins on the nearby Atzompa and El Gallo hills to the north are traditionally considered to be an integral part of the ancient city as well. Besides being one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica , Monte Albán was important for nearly one thousand years as

4292-573: The site's museum. There is some indication that the Zapotecs had writing and calendrical notation. A different type of carved stones is found on the nearby Building J in the center of the Main Plaza, a building also characterized by its unusual arrow-like shape and an orientation that differs from most other structures at the site. Inserted within the building walls are more than 40 large, carved slabs dating to Monte Albán II. They depict place-names, occasionally accompanied by additional writing and in many cases characterized by upside-down heads. Alfonso Caso

4366-413: The site. The site received 429,702 visitors in 2017. The primary threat to this archaeological site is urban growth, which is encroaching and "threatening to expand into territories that have potential archaeological value." To complicate matters, the administration of the site is divided amongst four different municipalities, making a unified effort to stop the urban encroachment challenging. Symmetry

4440-457: The stage for an understanding of the latter's founding and developmental trajectory. In this context, among the major accomplishments of Flannery's work in Oaxaca are his extensive excavations at the important formative center of San José Mogote in the Etla branch of the valley, a project co-directed with Joyce Marcus of the University of Michigan. A further important step in the understanding of

4514-484: The supreme priest residence, who controlled and directed all religious topics and at least be the Cocijo terrestrial representative, as is assumed by the urns and masks decorating the central chamber, from where possibly celebrated ceremonies related to the cult to the God of Rain. Generally this priest was related with the Great Lord and has been described as the Lord second son. After five months of restoration works, one of

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4588-400: The temples faced in the east or west directions, aligning with the sun's path. The temples were constructed with a characteristic two-room floor plan: a communal porch situated at the front, connected to a lesser revealed sanctuary at the backend. This collection of sacred venues may have been dedicated to royal ancestors, who acted as supplicants to Cocijo . One characteristic of Monte Albán

4662-463: The tomb, this was frequent in the Oaxaca region, as graves were used several times, placing previous remains to a side (disordered); only the last body remains were in the correct place. It is located 15 meters south of the previous. Although it is known as Cocijo Patio, in fact it was another high level residence that includes a surface of almost 400 square meters. Rooms are distributed around two patios oriented east-west, in front of each building still

4736-459: The town of Mitla . This area was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2010 in recognition for the "earliest known evidence of domesticated plants in the continent, while corn cob fragments from the same cave are said to be the earliest documented evidence for the domestication of maize." More finds of nomadic peoples date back to about 5000 BCE, with some evidence of the beginning of agriculture. By 2000 BCE, agriculture had been established in

4810-488: The very important postclassical political cohesion. The initial explorations of these palaces, along with their tombs were excavated and recovered in 1961-1976 under the direction of John Paddock. Lambityeco is a site with over two hundred platforms of which, unfortunately only two have been explored, structures 195 and 190. This set includes the largest site structure, it is 6 meters high made up of two slope bodies with stairways on its west side. There are remains of walls of

4884-421: The western side of the plaza, are rotated south of east, while later structures align more with the cardinal directions. The exception is the structure referred to as building “J.” This structure is located on the center line of the plaza but it is rotated and does not align with the other structures. It is believed that building “J” had an astronomical relation/ significance. Its steps are aligned perpendicular to

4958-469: The world. In Zapotec myth, he made the sun, moon, stars, seasons, land, mountains, rivers, plants and animals, and day and night by exhaling and creating everything from his breath. In Zapotec art Cocijo is represented with a zoomorphic face with a wide, blunt snout and a long forked serpentine tongue. Cocijo often bears the Zapotec glyph C in his headdress. A similar glyph is used in Mixtec codices as

5032-418: Was a salt producer, as much during prehispanic times as in relatively recent times, since records show that as late as 1940 salt was still produced in this zone. This process was made by running water through the region dirt, obtaining salt water; this water was boiled in pots to obtain salt after evaporating the water. It is confirmed that this city was a salt production center and that it provided up to 90% of

5106-471: Was accompanied by an equally rapid decline at San José Mogote and neighbouring satellite sites, making it likely that its chiefly elites were directly involved in the founding of the future Zapotec capital. This rapid shift in population and settlement, from dispersed localized settlements to a central urban site in a previously unsettled area, has been referred to as the “Monte Alban Synoikism” by Marcus and Flannery, in reference to similar recorded instances in

5180-429: Was not a major concern for the layout of Monte Albán plaza. Although the angles within the plaza are not perfect 90-degree corners, the plaza appears to be a rectangle without actually being so. The structures are not laid out in a symmetrical fashion, as the distances between the structures vary greatly from building to building. Construction methods used for orientation changed as Monte Albán expanded. Early structures, on

5254-410: Was not until 1931 that large-scale scientific excavations were undertaken, under the direction of Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso . In 1933, Eulalia Guzmán assisted with the excavation of Tomb 7. Over the following eighteen years, Caso and his colleagues Ignacio Bernal and Jorge Acosta excavated large sections within the monumental core of the site. Much of what is visible today in areas open to

5328-413: Was social stratification within the settlement. Walls ranging up to nine meters tall and twenty meters wide were built around the settlement; these would not only have created a boundary between Monte Alban and neighboring settlements, but also proved the power of the elites within the community. In Scott Hutson's analysis of the relationships between the commoners and the elites in Monte Alban, he notes that

5402-427: Was the capital of a major regional polity that exerted a dominating influence over the Valley of Oaxaca and across much of the Oaxacan highlands. Evidence at Monte Albán is suggestive of high-level contacts between the site's elites and those at the powerful central Mexican city of Teotihuacan , where archaeologists have identified a neighbourhood inhabited by ethnic Zapotecs from the valley of Oaxaca (Paddock 1983). By

5476-502: Was the first to identify these stones as "conquest slabs", likely listing places which the Monte Albán elites claimed to have conquered and/or controlled. Some of the places listed on Building J slabs have been tentatively identified. In one case (the Cañada de Cuicatlán region in northern Oaxaca), Zapotec conquest there has been confirmed through archaeological survey and excavations. The site of Monte Alban contains several pieces of evidence, through its architecture, to suggest that there

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