March03_2010

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Inside the Museum at Monte Alban there is a permanent display of the finest of the stone etchings gleaned from the Temple of Danzantes and and assortment of lesser artifacts the have been found in digs around Monte Alban.

Photos - Frames left and right: Fine craftsmanship represented in these two stones - an Elephant caricature at left and a stone tablet with deities? Or someone's family lineage?

Center frame: It seems that the early natives of Mexico had a fascination with death which the modern people seem to share. Such is part of the display of human skulls inside the museum at Monte Alban.

The Olmec/Zapotec center, Monte Albán, sits on a hilltop 400 meters above the valley floor near the city of Oaxaca, Mexico. The site is at the confluence of three large valleys, the Tlacolula Valley to the east, the Etla Valley to the north, and the Zimatlán-Ocotlán Valley to the south, all fertile agricultural regions.
Monte Albán began to emerge as a regional center sometime around 500 B.C. It's function seems to have been to unite the people of the three valley regions. The early architecture shows Olmec influence. The Zapotec later took control and rebuilt the center in their own style by building over (encasing) the original structures.

Photos - Frames left and right: This skull has an interesting feature: Early medicine from about 500 AD. Were these three holes drilled to relieve pressure of leadership? Or perhaps this person had terrible migraines that were being addressed.

Center frame: A figure with head dress on a sacrificial altar with the head of a warrior looking up from the underworld?

Photos - Frame left showing a rounded slab with the god of the underworld looking up toward figures and caricatures depicted in the real world. Center frame looks like a child's skull, and frame right shows the jaw bone of another skull - All of these skulls were found in tombs at Monte Alban.

Click here for more photos of Monte Alban for this day.