The Zapotec people were a strong community for thousands of years before finally being conquered by the Spanish in the 1500's. However, the famous archeological site of San Jose el Mogote can be found at the "spur" of the Oaxaca piedmont projecting out toward the Atoyac River at 1610 meters above sea level only 7.46 miles north-west of Oaxaca City headed for the village of Elta.
Most of the excavations took place at San Jose el Mogote in the early 1960's by archeologists from the Department of Archeology at Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. San Jose el Mogote is over 3500 years old. The Zapotec people were one of the first societies to build cities with public buildings, important urban centers and a written script of hieroglyphics.
The people used local deposits of earth for their local adobe brick-laying. There are areas within the city that were residential as well as downtown areas and burial sites. On the site was found a palace, a ball court and temples. Remnants show that the city of San Jose el Mogote was inhabited and grew for over 1000 years, deserted about 400 AD and then populated again only for a short time.
The most famous artifacts found at this site are of a monument with the name "Tiger One" and two jars with "'J' Two" engraved on them. These engravings are thought to be names of children by the date of their birth on the ritual calendar. The Zapotec people believed time was cyclical and had two calendars to track the passing and "re-passing" of time. Eighteen 20-day months plus five additional days completed the necessary 365 days of the solar calendar. Twenty different hieroglyphics that represented the "Signs of Days" combined with 13 different numbers formed the 260-day ritual calendar from which children were named.
Citations:
Flannery, Kent V. The Early Mesoamerican Village. New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1976. Pp. 58-61, 108-110
"Archaeological sites in Oaxaca". http://www.spanishabroad.com/oaxarch9.htm
Written by: Jessica Davis