Mexico announces the discovery of a thousand-year-old Zapotec tomb from the year 600 in the south of the country

Mexico City.- The Mexican Government announced this Friday the location of a Zapotec tomb in the state of Oaxaca (south), dating back to the year 600 AD and considered by the authorities as the archaeological find “most relevant of the last decade” due to its level of conservation and the information it provides. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reported the discovery in a press conference, where she stated that it is “the most relevant archaeological discovery of the last decade in Mexico” due to the conservation and information available, in addition to considering it a sample of the “millennial greatness” of the country. For its part, the Secretariat of Culture pointed out that, due to its architectural and pictorial richness, the Zapotec tomb located in Cerro de la Cantera, in the Oaxacan town of San Pablo Huitzo, provides high-value information on the social organization, funerary rituals and worldview of the Zapotec civilization.

In social media, the Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, described the finding as “exceptional” due to its conservation and what it reveals about that culture, emphasizing that “it is investigated, protected, and shared with society.”

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Symbols of Power and Death

In a statement, the Ministry of Culture highlighted the presence of sculptural elements and mural paintings, with symbolic representations associated with power and death, as well as friezes and tombstones with calendar inscriptions, which —the note maintains—, “places it among the most significant discoveries of the national archaeological heritage.” At the entrance to the antechamber, an owl —a bird that in the Zapotec worldview symbolizes night and death— decorates the access, and its beak covers the stuccoed and painted face of a “Zapotec lord,” which could be the portrait of the ancestor to whom the tomb was dedicated. The threshold is flanked by a lintel with a frieze composed of stone tombstones engraved with calendar names, while the figures of a man and a woman with headdresses and artifacts in both hands, possibly “guardians of the place”, appear carved into the jambs. In the burial chamber, sections of mural painting were also found in situ, in ocher, white, green, red and blue colors, with a procession of characters carrying bags of copal and walking towards the entrance.

Studies to preserve the finding

The Secretariat of Culture indicated that an interdisciplinary team from the INAH Oaxaca Center is carrying out conservation, protection, and research work, including the stabilization of the mural painting, whose condition is delicate due to the presence of roots and insects and abrupt changes in environmental conditions.

In parallel, ceramic, iconographic, and epigraphic analyses are being developed, as well as physical anthropology studies, to delve into the rituals, symbols, and funerary practices associated. “Due to its constructive quality and decorative richness, the finding is compared to other high-relevance Zapotec funerary sets in the region, which confirms its importance for understanding the social, artistic, and symbolic complexity of this civilization,” concluded the Mexican government agency.