Mexico Guide
Oaxaca
Monte Albán
Since Aldous Huxley visited in the 1930s, little has changed at MONTE ALBÁN. The main structures have perhaps been cleared and restored a little more, but it's still the great flattened mountain-top (750m by 250m), the scale and overall layout of the ceremonial precinct and the views over the valley that impress more than any individual aspect of the site. Late afternoon, as the sun sinks into the valley, is the best time to see it.
It seems almost madness to have tried to build a city here, so far from the obvious livelihood of the valleys and without any natural water supply (in the dry season water was carried up and stored in vast urns). Yet that may have been the Zapotecs' point – to demonstrate their mastery of nature. Certainly, the rulers who lived here must have commanded a huge workforce, first to create the site, then later to transport materials and keep it supplied. What you see today is just the very centre of the city – the religious and political heart later used by the Mixtecs as a magnificent burial site – the dominating apex of the region between 300 and 700 AD. On the terraced hillsides below lived a bustling population of between 25,000 and 30,000 craftsmen, priests, administrators and warriors, all of who, presumably, were supported by tribute from the valleys. It's small wonder that so top-heavy a society was easily destabilized. This said, there is still much speculation as to why, just like Teotihuacán, the site had been abandoned by 1000 AD.
Read more ▼
- Practical Information ▼
- Sight(s) ▼