📷 Jonathan Valdes · Pexels
Where in the world
Mexico
Mitla
Zapotec · Mexico
Field notes
- civilizations
- Zapotec
- types
- City · Palace · Temple · Hypogeum
- built
- 950 CE — 1,400 CE
- occupied
- 200 CE — 1,521 CE
- country
- Mexico
The site
Mitla is a Zapotec city in the Tlacolula Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, and after Monte Albán the most important site of that culture. In a later period it became the region's chief religious centre as Mixtec influence grew, and its architecture blends both traditions. Its very name descends from the Nahuatl Mictlán, "place of the dead"; in Zapotec it is Lyobaa, "place of rest," fitting for a site founded as a sacred burial ground.
