Mitla

The Zapotecs named this place Lyobaa; the Mixtecs called it Nuu Ndiyo and the Mexicas came closest to its present-day name with Mictlan. In all cases their names meant the same thing: "A place of rest". Now, San Pablo Villa de Mitla, is one of the nation's most important, and visited, archaelogical sites boasting a history that goes back to 800 B.C.

Located 40 km outside of Oaxaca City, Mitla has become world famous for its distinctive pre-Columbian Mesoamerican buildings. This small town is lined with incredible frescos and murals boasting an array of colors such as sepias, blood reds, blues and blacks. In his book "Una Vision del Mexico Prehispanico" (A Vision of Prehispanic Mexico) Román Piña Chan has explained how these colors were a product of polverized floral leaves from the Zonpantle tree. 

About four kilometers east of the town's center, near the Xaag or Xaaga hamlet, are the remains of a large hacienda that in its heyday was a lavish building until it fell to ruin around the 19th century, and, according to folklore, buried below lies an ancient Zapotec palace.

Examining the subsoil, one can actually see stone panels with elaborate geometrical designs similar to the ones on the pre-Columbian buildings found in Mitla that seem to prove the palace's existence. Shining light on the panels reveal the distinctive colors that are indicative of the Mixtec-Zapotec period and have been perfectly preserved due to the soil's protection.

Travelling two kilometers north east of Xaag and you'll find some of the best examples of cave paintings in Mexico that are more than 40 centuries old. The caves are located near a rocky hill which also boasts a series of Zapotec engravings.

Alexander von Humboldt

Mitla itself has a small museum in the town's center that documents its history before and after the Spanish conquest. A number of Spanish writers of the colonial era remark on the well built pre-Hispanic buildings here. The famous explorer Alexander von Humboldt published a description of the site in 1810. Some excavations and repair of buildings was done under the direction of Leopoldo Batres in 1901. The Mexican government made further excavations of the site in the mid 1930s and the early 1960s.

Mitla also hosts a large outdoor market which offers an array of delicious cuisine and artisanal products.

Apart from Mitla's historical significance, it is also a "palenque" meaning it is a producer of mezcal where they produce the drink by hand from the heart of the agave plant and five kilometeres from Mitla is a small town called Matatlán, which, due to the number of palenques, is called the "mezcal capital of the world".

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