This post has taken a while to put together simply because I have too many pictures, and it’s been hard to winnow them down. Not that I haven’t taken too many pictures of other places in the past, but…it’s so terribly hard to take a bad picture of Monte Alban. And therefore so hard to choose just a few.

It takes a visit to a place like Monte Alban to realize how pathetic our educational system is in the US. Or at least, it was when Dan and I were growing up. How many of us even heard of the great Zapotec civilization that flourished for over a thousand years in southern Mexico?

Over a thousand years.

And vanished (not the Zapotecs, who are still thriving in the region, but the great civilization they created) without a trace, and no one knows why.

Here is a map of the site at Monte Alban, estimated by some at less than ten percent of the original city, a mountaintop artificially leveled to create this stunning city center whose main plaza is the size of several (American) football fields (300 by 200 meters). The English description says:

Monte Alban, the largest pre-Hispanic city in the region of Oaxaca, represents the first urban plan on the American continent. Its continuous human occupation spans more than thirteen centuries (500 B.C. to 850 A.D.), when its gradual abandonment began, for reasons still unknown.

In its golden age, this city was composed of a Main Plaza, the heart of the ceremonial center, and a series of nearby monumental architectural complexes...

It was characterized by having developed a true State as its system of government, led by the priestly class. A large part of its economy was based on tribute paid by communities in the Valley of Oaxaca, complemented by the cultivation of corn, beans, squash, and other rain-fed products grown on a system of terraces built on the slopes of the surrounding hills.

Monte Alban is one of the few sites in the world where the rise of the State as a system of government is clearly shown...

In 1987, UNESCO named this Zone of Archaeological Monuments a World Heritage Site for the convservation and enjoyment of all people of the world.

Here are some views of the monumental ruins, mostly those to the north of and surrounding the main plaza.

  Looking from the north platform back over the main plaza, you can get an idea of how huge this site is. And yet, it is only a small part of the original city.

And here are some views of the setting. You can see the city and valleys of Oaxaca on all four sides of this site, a breathtaking setting that people would come and visit even if the ruins of the city weren’t so stunning.