One of the principle pleasures of this trip to Mexico was the opportunity to share it with our dear friends Patti and David Bradley, veterans of two trips to Burma with us! They arrived late on Thursday night, and had a bit of a rough reception at the hotel: the room was tiny and hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned. It took a couple of days of negotiation to get this ironed out. But we didn’t let that put a damper on our fun!
We got a car and driver through the hotel and our first impulse was to drive straight to Monte Alban, the ruined capital of the magnificent Oaxacan Civilization. The site, which covers only the civic-ceremonial center, is enormous; the excavations have uncovered parts of virtually all the original structures. The site sits on an artificially leveled ridgetop at about 6400 feet above sea level; the ridgetop is clearly visible from the Zocalo in Oaxaca, which lies less than six miles to the east.
Monte Alban occupies a special place among the Mesoamerican civilizations: unlike most of the other civilizations, it developed an advanced state structure seemingly without reference to any previous state. The city arose as the capital of an expanding civilization around 500 BC; it remained the center for more than a thousand years. Our first view of the site was from the edge of ball court looking west. To give you some idea of the size of the site, this view shows about a third of the structures.
The structures along the western side were used as temples and residences for priests. The best preserved, and most famous, is the building called “Los Danzantes” after the stone reliefs that have been preserved on its exterior.
The building takes its name from the impression formed by the earliest archaeologists that these images are of dancers. As the scholarship became better acquainted with the civilization, it became clear that these were actually images of captives–perhaps chieftains of rival sites–who had been tortured and genitally mutilated.
The main plaza is bounded by two huge platforms on the north and south, each one reached by monumental staircases. Here are two monuments on the staircases.
And this is the view of the complex from the South Platform.
In the center is one of the most interesting and enigmatic buildings at Monte Alban, Building J. It takes an arrow-like shape and is oriented differently from the rectilinearity that characterizes the site. Some have speculated that it was an observatory with astronomical functions, but no one has been able to show that the alignment gives it any particular astronomical capacities. It, too, includes numerous carved stones at its base, this time a combination of writing, glyphs, and a series of upside down heads. There is speculation that the writing, as yet undeciphered, together with the heads records a series of conquests by Monte Alban.
The North Platform is a particularly complex construction; it is built around a sunken arena at the top of the platform; the arena is surrounded by pyramids of various sizes.
We’ve now seen the ruins of Teotihuacan, Teotitlan, and Monte Alban, and the Oaxaca site is the most deeply moving, perhaps because it remains so mysterious.
Back in Oaxaca, we wanted to follow our visit to the site with a visit to the Museo Regional de Oaxaca in the ex-convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán. On the way, we ran into more evidence that it is always fiesta time in Oaxaca: a colorful procession of uncertain purpose or origin!
The museum itself was splendid, centered around a number of the treasures from Monte Alban. And the restoration of the old convent building was a total success; the views out onto the botanical garden were particularly memorable.
But nothing beats old friends….
We ended the day with dinner at Las Danzantes, a restaurant with a spectacular open air setting, and pretty good chow.
