Place of the Dead

The ruins at Mitla are fascinating because of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of Greca stone fretwork decorating the five palaces. Around 1350 CE 10 000 people lived at Mitla. Apparently Mixtec peoples, escaping the Aztecs, came down from the north mingling with the Zapotecs living there at the time.

But the area is much older than this. In fact in the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca today we saw tools used by nomadic families living in the area surrounding Mitla over 12 000 years ago when Ontario was covered with kilometers of ice.

The people way back then found refuge in the caves and beneath projecting rocks. Archeologists have found terraces where corn and beans were cultivated. Gradually people changed from a nomadic to a settled life.

It was many thousands of years later that the five palaces at Mitla were built. The stone work is amazing because entire walls were covered with with red stucco and pieces of white polished stone somehow attached without mortar. You can see the stone work in the photos and imagine the whole area covered in majestic red and white.

Mitla was a theocracy presided over by spiritual leaders to whom all other rulers payed homage. The priests carried out their ceremonies dressed in white robes in air thick with incense. In an inner chamber of his palace, the High Priest ruled from a Jaguar covered throne - even the king, when in his presence, took a lesser seat. The floors were covered with woven mats for visitors who stayed the night to sleep.

You can enter the dark tombs now.