Among the Ruins of Monte Albán July 1, 2022
Located just 6 miles from our apartment, well beyond the city limits, and 1500 feet up a dry hillside, sits a fantastic ancient city. It is known as Monte Albán, but this is a recent name. In fact, we cannot say what these people actually called their creation, for it was essentially vacated by the end of the 6th-century AD, leaving only abandoned ruins for their inheritors, the Zapotec, and later the Aztecs and Spaniards, to ponder. Like Teotihuacan outside of Mexico City, Monte Albán inspired awe and wonder for many centuries preceding the Conquest.
Today all we are wondering about Monte Albán is how to get there. We could pack food and water and hike for maybe 4 hours from the city center, but this would presume that we do not get lost along the way. A better option is simply to take a taxi, a bit pricey at 200 pesos, and explore the outer barrios of Oaxaca City in relative comfort, while picking the brain of a loquacious driver over the state of things in our fair city. This proves to be a pleasure, as Oaxaqueños are effusively proud of their home, a far cry from our days in Chiapas when all hell was breaking loose.
I join the chorus of praise for the great citizens of Oaxaca: “Benito Juárez! Portfirio Diaz!”
“Y Vinnie Castilla!” he enthusiastically adds. “Colorado Rockies!” I had almost forgotten about the World Series star, the local boy turned baseball hero. But as they will remind you, Oaxaqueños have contributed mightily not only to the Mexican dream itself but to the American pastime. Again, this is a far cry from the Chiapaneco experience, which is akin to neglected aliens stranded on a distant planet.
The hills outside of the city expose mostly red earth and semi-arid vegetation, although the tree cover increases as we climb above 6000 feet, and the breeze takes on a slight chill. Soon the leveled hilltops at 6500 come into focus, and each of them reveals settlement. However, this is no typical high-end vacation architecture with 360-degree views. These are indeed the ruins we are after, shaved flat but for the mounded pyramids layered with stones—Monte Albán—overlooking the populous valley far below.
The trees here are especially regal and widely spaced, with vast unwieldy canopies—the Cazahuate, the Guaje, the Ficus, the Ocote pine. Beyond the shade of these tenderly managed giants is a sun-drenched plain as horizontal as a soccer pitch, but grander still. At one time some two-millennia ago, thousands of Zapoteca tended their priestly, political, and scientific duties in this celestial kingdom; whereas, today there are only a few dozen tourists and a flourishing population of iridescent green-blue lizards.
Evidence of human ingenuity abounds on this once-and-future sacred space, including the well-preserved observatory, which illuminated the critical moments of solstice and equinox, marking the commencement of the milpa season, the planting and the harvest, and the eternal passage of time. For those still seeking luxury accommodations, there are the remaining foundations of the elite residences, replete with subterranean burial chambers, so the family unit stays close even after death. For the gamesmen, there is the obligatory ball court, El Juego de Pelota, set into the earth like an archaic lecture hall, surrounded by bleacher seating, although the stone-hoop goals that signaled victory and ultimate sacrifice are long gone, either to the elements or to unscrupulous collectors.
And then there is the art scratched into the stone. The facial features on the petroglyphs are large and pronounced, some of them 5-feet high, and they are familiar—thick protruding lips, wide nose, somewhat African. They match those of the giant Olmec heads found in Veracruz and Tabasco, supporting the theory that the Zapotec of Oaxaca, unlike the Aztec or the Maya, descend directly from the Olmec, the truly ancient ones, who created the first civilization of Mesoamerica. The people that walked these sculpted plains were certainly in touch with that original vision.
In stark modern contrast, a noisy tourist group from Talladega is currently yelling gross instructions to the sibling member that has wandered off across the ancestral pitch. “Get yer ass back over here,” shouts the fat American, who is struggling to get her pasty porcine legs down the steep steps of the temple. The Mexican visitors cannot avoid watching her clumsy, noisy descent. The Talladegan lets out a loud “whoop,” as she barely avoids a catastrophic stumble. She announces to all within earshot her fear that she may fall. Together the pilgrims imagine what a blood sacrifice might look like today, and what such an arbitrary ritual might signify. However, my curiosity at the scene remains purely scientific.