Monte Albán

Monte Albán stands on an artificially levelled ridge about 9 km west of Oaxaca City in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, around 400 metres above the valley floor. Founded about 500 BC, it became the political and ceremonial capital of the Zapotec people and grew through the Classic period, when it held a population often estimated at 15,000 to 25,000. Its decline began around 700 AD, after which the city was gradually abandoned, and later peoples, notably the Mixtecs, reused older tombs for burials. The core of the site is the Gran Plaza, a vast open space roughly 300 metres long, bounded by platforms and temples. Notable structures include the North Platform, the South Platform with its wide stairway, the I-shaped Ball Court, and Building J, an arrowhead-shaped structure oriented differently from the surrounding buildings and widely interpreted as an observatory. Its walls carry carved stones with figures and early glyphs, and the Danzantes gallery shows carved figures of the earliest phase, once thought to be dancers and now often read as captives. Some of the site's tombs contain painted murals and rich funerary offerings; the famous Tomb 7, excavated by Alfonso Caso in 1932, yielded Mixtec gold, jade and turquoise now displayed in the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca. The site is interpreted through signage and a small on-site museum rather than a guided curatorial route, and visitors move through the plaza and surrounding mounds at their own pace. Excavation and consolidation have been carried out since Caso's work in the 1930s, with ongoing INAH restoration. Monte Albán was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987 together with the historic centre of Oaxaca. The main plaza is generally well preserved, while some outlying mounds remain only partly excavated.