Mitla Ruins

The day after visiting the Tule tree, I went to Mitla (30 miles outside of Oaxaca city), which has also been on my list for a while.  I'm really lucky that I was doing all this sight-seeing with a friend who has a car, it would have been much more difficult to get to these places without his help!

Mitla was an important religious center for the Zapotec people, and was at its peak around 1350 a.d.  The main characteristic that these ruins are known for is the "mosaic" stonework, which shows influence of the Mixtec people (from the north).  There are 14 different geometric designs, representing the sky, earth, feathered serpent, and other important symbols.  The church was made from stones that were taken from the original buildings of the site.  

This was a pretty common occurrence at many places I've visited...  Upon conquering a city or civilization, the Catholic Church would either dismantle the former religious site and use the pieces to construct a cathedral on the holiest spot (Mexico, Rome), or use the existing building and "convert" it into a cathedral by means of statues, paintings and lots of gold (all over Spain, particularly with mosques in southern Spain).

FYI - the Zapotec and  Mixtec languages are still spoken in the state of Oaxaca, they are the 2 most widely used of the 17 indigenous languages still spoken here.  I hear people speaking Zapotec all the time in Miahuatlan, especially on Mondays (market days) when many people come down from the surrounding mountain villages to sell their crops.