OR, A LARGE WELL-CURATED EXHIBITION AFTER LAST PERUVIAN DISAPPOINTMENT. Hello my beauties how are all of you faring in this sunny hopeful patch? Have you dusted off your feathers and are you ready for a […]

OR, A LARGE WELL-CURATED EXHIBITION AFTER LAST PERUVIAN DISAPPOINTMENT. Hello my beauties how are all of you faring in this sunny hopeful patch? Have you dusted off your feathers and are you ready for a […]
Alert: This is last years offering which I’m adding to. I’ve rejoined the British Museum so I’m back in the members’ room to write and edit photos. So happy to be back in my second home which is more condusive to work-like endeavours. They also have an eclectic library so I’ve just managed to cross reference information on the Zapotec, Mixtec and Mayan with some art photos which are lovely because old and I don’t recognise them so probably they are hidden away in some basement these days. Enjoy
It’s huge, it’s Zapotec and it’s completely different to what I expected. I hadn’t researched at all so it was a huge learning curve from my usual Mayan sites.
In parallel with the rise of Teotihuacan, Zapotec civilisation encompassed much of the southern highlands. In the course of the first millennium BC, early chiefdoms of the Oaxaca Valley coalesced into a militaristic Zapotec state centred on the commanding hill-top capital Monte Albán. Zapotec scribes invented one of the four independent Mesoamerican writing systems (the others being Maya, Mixtec and Aztec) and refined their own variant of the 260-day ritual calendar which was in widespread use throughout Mesoamerica.
From about AD 1200, Mixtec peoples began to assume control of key Zapotec sites through conquest and political alliances. Knowledge of metallurgy, which had been introduced a few centuries earlier from South and Central America, was employed in the production of copper and gold objects to reflect rank and status. During the fifteenth century AD, the Mixtec resisted the Aztec imperial advance, but the consummate stoneworking and metalworking skills of many Mixtec artisans were redeployed to serve the Aztec kings.
The Zapotecs were a sedentary culture living in villages and towns, in houses constructed with stone and mortar. They recorded the principal events in their history by means of hieroglyphics, and in warfare they made use of cotton armour. The well-known ruins of Mitla have been attributed to them.
(I will write another post about the fabulous jade and gold discoveries, that are housed in Oaxaca Palace Museum. This is closed at the moment but I’ll be able to dig up some photos from before. I really need to write a bit more about the amazing Zapotecs)
I had got up ready to go to the archaeological museum but it has been closed. No signs on the door except the opening hours, and through the peephole a man informed me that they didn’t know when they’d open again to which I replied rather hotly I must confess well put a sign on the door then and change the bloody Google details. He said that’s a good idea I’ll put a sign on the door as if he’d just thought of it. Yes, some people have travelled thousands of miles to see these artefacts I whined. His beady eyes perused me as if I was mad. And sort it out on Google and your site this is the second time I’ve come here. He was making me cross and I felt as if he might just let me in if I kept banging on about it.
Top Tip: With the distraction of what was open or not, and jumping on buses every five minutes as places decided to close some, or all of their historical sites and museums, or basically anything of any interest whatsoever, I learned some bitter lessons. When in times of crisis don’t trust any info gleaned by Google et al. You need to speak to proper locals or call tour guides of the area that you are planning to go to. Nobody bothered to change their details online while I was there so I was disappointed many times. So due diligence is essential, don’t just assume they will tell you any changes especially in casual places like Mexico. Make the calls before you get on that bus, or drag over to the other side of town for that special gallery because they will close when they feel like it!
Alert: Here I am still looking back at a year ago this week, so don’t you think I snuck off again! I am simply trying to get my mojo back after being back here and not travelling since my hideous experience with Heathrow’s ‘quarantine’ hotel hell on my tortuous return from Mexico last September.
OR BLOODY XEL-HA IS STILL NOT OPEN AND APPARENTLY HASN’T BEEN FOR NEARLY A YEAR.
OR AN INTRODUCTION to ITS PRE CLASSIC ROOTS. PART ONE. WHERE IT ALL STARTED. AN INTRODUCTION Dear reader, after my extensive travels within the Yucatan Peninsula in 2019 and 2021, I can finally start to […]
OR, HISTORY REWRITTEN. Below are six new documentaries that I’ve found which are adding nails into the coffin of how old civilization actually is, and from whence we actually did come. They come from very […]
I had to go directly towards the sound of those clearly very dangerous creatures who were furious I had invaded their territory and would surely rip me limb from limb. They were clearly the souls of the ancestors and indeed were furious at another European invasion.
When I say bizarre it’s more of a tragedy really, a Spanish church plonked on the top of a huge pyramid, this with a full view of one of the local temperamental volcanoes, Popocatépetl or more easily known as ‘Popo’ and Iztaccihuatl or ‘Izta’. According to one Aztec Legend, Popo was a great warrior who loved Izta. He went off to war and when Izta heard false news of Popo’s fall in battle, she died of a broken heart. When Popo returned to find his love gone, he vowed to always watch over and defend her. The shape of Iztaccihuatl mountain is that of a ‘sleeping woman’. It is also said locally, that when trouble is brewing in the world Popo becomes active
My Odysseun saga has taken me all round the Yucatan peninsula and further, on various road trips. In these times of adversity I think I can safely quote Sinatra and say ‘I did it my way’
I’ll add more later but I want to get out while I still can and the dark thoughts enter my head again. Love you all.
Alert: I’m having trouble in finding images so some will be of other gods just to enjoy the art! This will be corrected when I get back to the UK. I think that’s why others aren’t mentioned because they are so difficult to identify!
Before deciphering the codices the gods were all given just a letter to name them. Now however we have their glorious and exotic definitions but they usually are referred to by their letters too hence God D (Mayan: “Iguana House”)