One of the most fascinating of recent discoveries in Mesoamerican studies is the impact of the great Central Mexican city of Teotihuacan on the Classic Maya civilization. Breakthroughs in our ability to read ancient Maya hieroglyphs has revealed the importance of a number of warlords apparently from Teotihuacan who conquered or in other ways brought Maya cities under the political sway of the Central Mexican metropolis. This occurred in the late fourth and fifth centuries AD and corresponds to a period of intense cultural interaction between these regions. The Maya elite of cities such as Tikal, Rio Azul and Copan adopted Teotihuacan costumes and architectural and pottery styles following Central Mexican precedent as they proclaimed to all their cultural affiliations with Teotihuacan. These Maya cities are over a thousand kilometers from Teotihuacan as the crow flies, and the Teotihuacanos would have encountered many other Mesoamerican
cultures long before reaching the land of the Maya. Unfortunately, unlike the Maya, none of these other cultures have produced a similarly large number of written texts that modern epigraphers can read. For this reason we will never be able to obtain the same amount of detailed information on their interactions with Teotihuacan as we have for the Maya. Nevertheless, there is one ancient Mesoamerican city with a not insubstantial corpus of hieroglyphic texts that is now shedding light on Teotihuacan’s imperial ambitions in the Early Classic period and local reactions to these incursions.

This city is Monte Alban, ancient capital of the Zapotec civilization of Oaxaca, situated half way between Teotihuacan and the land of the Maya. It has long been known that a Oaxaca barrio existed in Teotihuacan, apparently the home of ex-patriot Zapotecs living far from their native home. Ceramics reflected the styles of their far-away home in Monte Alban and a tomb lintel from this suburb had a Zapotec glyph carved upon it. (The glyph is the calendar date 9 Earthquake, the birth date and name, presumably, of the Zapotec lord originally buried in the tomb.) There is also clear evidence for Teotihuacanos at Monte Alban but the evidence is of quite a different sort. Most interestingly, most of this evidence comes from tomb paintings and stone carvings that were hidden from sight shortly after their original carving. Tomb 105, for example, portrays an ancestor of an Early Classic lord of Monte Alban dressed in the costume of a Teotihuacan warlord. However, most of the evidence for Teotihuacanos at Monte Alban comes from a series of stone monuments that were ultimately set into the base of the South Platform of the central area of the site. A number of these stones portray a row of men in typical Teotihuacan costume walking towards a Zapotec lord, likely the local king of Monte Alban. The names of each of these figures are recorded in front of him, including both the personal name and the date in the Mesoamerican Sacred Calendar on which they were born, which functioned in ancient Mexico as the first name by which an individual was known after birth. These names appear on a number of other carved stones where they mark what are apparently funerary censers, topped off with Teotihuacan motifs, suggesting that these foreign lords were venerated posthumously at Monte Alban.

That this veneration occurred at Monte Alban and not at distant Teotihuacan is suggested by the fact that this list of names with associated images of funerary censers ends with the ancient name for Monte Alban itself, “Jaguar Mountain”.

The stones on which these glyphs and images were carved appear, after a study done by the leading epigrapher of Zapotec hieroglyphic writing, Javier Urcid, to have been lintels of a temple that was dismantled or destroyed shortly after their original carving. Much damage occurred to the original hieroglyphs in the process and while the temple may have collapsed naturally (possibly because of poor architecture), it is also possible that the temple was deliberately destroyed, a not infrequent occurrence in the volatile world of ancient Mesoamerican politics. These monuments were subsequently reused as wall panels on Monte Alban’s South Platform. However, the carvings of parading Teotihuacanos were buried face down and upon the underside of the former lintels (now panels) were carved a series of scenes. One portrays a lord seated atop a mountain, certainly a new ruler of Monte Alban, while the others portray captives standing atop mountains, symbolizing the locations where they once ruled. These captives presumably are those of the new Monte Alban lord who, befitting his status as lord of “Jaguar Mountain”, is dressed in a full body jaguar suit. A relatively lengthy text is found in front of this lord’s face and these hieroglyphs likely include his name. A specific glyphic collocation, “Hand-grasping-Voice-of-Heaven” is likely the personal name of this lord while his calendric name seems to be 7 Knot.

Did lord 7 Knot overthrow a Teotihuacan-allied dynasty to impose himself as lord of Monte Alban? Unfortunately, the undeciphered state of the Zapotec hieroglyphs preclude certainty in any interpretation we make from these monuments. However, it is interesting that the Zapotec barrio at Teotihuacan appears to have been isolated from Oaxaca during its later years, even though maintaining Zapotec culture, almost as if this area was home to a group of political refugees from Oaxaca. No monuments depicting Teotihuacanos survived in public view at Monte Alban. What little evidence that remains at the site attesting to a close relationship between the Zapotecs and Teotihuacan was been found buried out of site of the Late Classic inhabitants. My own research in the Maya area has indicated that there were at least two major incursions of Teotihuacanos into the Maya area with the two groups opposed to one another. It appears that an early Teotihuacan dynasty was overthrown and the succeeding dynasty carried out a campaign against those foreign kingdoms that still supported or descended from the original Teotihuacan dynasty. How Monte Alban fits into this picture is not entirely clear but the fact that Teotihuacan influence at the site seems to have been eliminated by later Zapotec kings, and the fact that the inhabitants of the Zapotec barrio appear to have been isolated from their homeland, indicates that Oaxaca was deeply involved in these “international” intrigues. Continued research in Mesoamerica is sure to reveal yet further clues as to the intricate political relationships between the various regions of Mesoamerica.

Travel to Oaxaca with Stanley Guenter.