In Mitla, the colonial church constructed atop the pyramids, is not a pyramid but is similar to the governor's palace at Uxmal. Mitla was the main religious center, so the church had to obliterate the claim.
Mitla, in the upper end of the Tlacolula Valley, has the grandeur that other Zapotec, or Mixtec structures lack. Not a korbeled arch, but lintels are carved in the famous Mitla design, mosaic of waves and cloud patterns, the column of life.
Settled about 11,000 years ago, Mitla his the homeland of domesticated maize around 3-2000 BC. Natives ate maize, beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash/gourds, and chocolate.
It was hard to see the sculptures of the dancers, but there was a wonderful Jaguar tomb. Mitla, from the Nahuatl, was called Mictlán, the nine underworlds of the dead. Sort of like Dante's Inferno.
At Lambityeco, we followed the path down to the creek, and found good examples of pre-Columbian pottery including including a leg from a small breasted pot. It was three legged with a hole in it to keep it from exploding during firing.
Lambityeco is a part of the larger site, Yeguih, or Yagul which either means small hill or old tree. You pick. Lambityeco is a Zapotec word for hollow hill (salt mines), or, still mound—a good thing when gravesites are involved..
The guard showed us his collection of stylized polychrome shards, jade beads, obsidian arrowheads, granite axes, etc. Later, some young boys approach us and offer to sell us a small Tlaloc or Chak-mool sculpture, but we decline. I am torn by the duality of their wanting to preserve the past, but their need to make money off it in the present.
There are also good 3D examples of stucco clay sculptures over the two entrances to the tombs. I am agog.
No date. Written near Aug 9 post.
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