They Could See for Miles

Yesterday we took a tour west to the Monte Alban, one of the earliest cities in Mesoamerica, founded around 500 BE. Its amazing because it has a 360 degree view of the surrounding area and so could easily defend itself. It was a political and economic centre for almost 1000 years.

Back then, the floor of the amphitheater was stuccoed red to represent the life forces, blood and fire. These people worked with metal alloys, were amazing astronomers and architects. It's almost impossible to imagine the richly coloured and decorated facades as they would have been then, to imagine the 25 games or so competitors played before an audience of the elite and to remember that as glorious as these sites appear, they were literally built upon the backs of the poor.

In the photos, you'll see women with knees bent and legs spread to represent childbearing. One woman is giving birth to a god. You can see two legs descending from her.

The tree with purple leaves is the Jacaranda tree found in South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

These ancient sites remind me over and over again that as advanced as we are now, people then had functioning domestic, social and political systems. Their water collection and distribution systems were remarkable.

It's a romantic and silly idea to think of wanting to escape the present to live in the past. If I existed then, I'd probably have been a slave of some sort -- serving the wealthy. Yuk.