The hilltop Zapotec capital — the first city in Mesoamerica, built on a flattened mountain above the Oaxaca Valley
Monte Albán sits atop a ridge 400m above the Oaxaca Valley floor, a mountain that was manually levelled and built over across 1,200 years by the Zapotec civilisation. Founded around 500 BCE, it was the capital of the Zapotec state until approximately 700 CE, at its peak housing 25,000 people and controlling the Valley of Oaxaca and surrounding mountain territories. The site is distinctive in being built on a raised summit with no natural water source — every drop of water was carried up — suggesting that the location's military and symbolic value (visibility from across the valley, proximity…
Monte Albán was established around 500 BCE by Zapotec peoples moving from the valley floor to a previously uninhabited mountain summit, creating the first purpose-built urban capital in Mesoamerica. At its peak (200 BCE–700 CE), it controlled a state of approximately 2,000 settlements across the southern highlands of Mexico. The city was abandoned around 700–800 CE for reasons still debated; the Mixtec subsequently used the tombs (and dug new ones) for their own burials, including Tomb 7 which yielded one of the greatest pre-Columbian treasure hoards found in Mexico, now in Oaxaca's Regional…