Monte Albán: Zapotec castle-building

Pàn de muertos and 'muertitos' heads.

Monday, 2nd November 2009

Fresh from my long nights rest, I rose early and met Jose Antonio for (yes....hot cakes..), dead-head bread and coffee.

We headed out around 9.30 towards Monte Alban - one of the most historic sites of Zapotec civilization, that was miraculously unspoilt by those meanie Spanish conquistadors since it was preserved on top of a mound over which the grass and shrubbage had grown, and well away from the valley of Oaxaca. Indeed, the nasty Spaniards of the times had a destructive tendency to demolish everything pre-them, and pillage their stones to make their own castles. (Remember that spoilt little boy on every beach across the world, who spitefully knocks down a rival little boy's sandcastle. He's re-enacting history...)

Monte Alban is a series of temples, built on an as yet unexplained flat-topped mountain (unexplained since when it was first built, back in 1,500 BC, neither animals big enough nor tools significant enough to scrape away a mountain top had been invented or imported). The site comes complete with 'pelota' sports court, (a distant cousin of pelote basque - or squash, but with the quirky difference that the winner gets to die! Novel thought!), an uber cutting edge sundial statue, astromony-viewing platform and stone carvings depicting various surgical interventions practiced at the time. (Frightening to think that they had the tools to carry out highly technical medical surgery, but not to write it down on anything more convenient than a four floot stone slab in cartoon graphics).

More interestingly though, was the contrast between what had been presented in my 'trusty' Western guide book as 'scenes of torture of prisoners of war', and what was very plausibly described by our guide as early medical interventions. Colonization lives, it would seem...

The site is built according to principles of science from the time, that pre-dated the Spanish catholic religion - so that buildings, each reflecting a particular God (these being a 'politeist' - or multi-Godded bunch of people) are built to accomodate the various sun and season configurations. The representation of the cross symbol too - indissociable to our minds from religion, was a scientific symbol for signalling directions. Genius.

We also learned that in the pre-colombian era, many numbers of races lived in these parts, and if I'd had to meet any of them, I would certainly go for the sense-of-humour endowed 'viscos', who would place a pebble between their eyes to encourage their going cross-eyed - a recognised a sign of beauty. Good times...

After treipsing round the mound for a good hour and a bit, we headed off to the other side of Oaxaca to visit Mitla, the site that replaced Monte Alban as the centre of Zapotec business, but which suffered at the hands of the conquistadors, who kicked it down and built a Catholic sandcastle in its place.

Our cultural tour ended with yet more mole - but home-made this time, at the most amazing house in the country (I've checked..it is..). I'm mole'd up. Time for bed. (Or a 6 hour bus ride back to Mexico...como lo quieres.)

Buenas noches.