'Tomb Seven: The Place of the Ancestors' at Oaxaca Museum of Cultures, Mexico

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reopened an exhibition in Oaxaca that features more than 400 valuable artifacts found in a tomb at the Monte Albán archaeological site in 1932.

Credit: Héctor Montaño/INAH

The pieces discovered by archaeologist Alfonso Caso in tomb seven of the Zapotec site and dubbed “The Treasure of Monte Albán” include objects made of gold, jade, rock crystal and jaguar bones, among other materials.

The exhibition, made up of a total of more than 600 artifacts, is housed in Room 3 of the Oaxaca Museum of Cultures.

Credit: Héctor Montaño/INAH

Curators have updated the exhibition by including plaques offering new interpretations of the pieces, while the integration of modern technology will also contribute to providing an enhanced experience for visitors.

INAH archaeologist and exhibition curator Nelly Robles told the newspaper El Economista that as a result of new research it is now known that “tomb seven was an ossuary and not a tomb for a specific dignitary.”

Credit: Héctor Montaño/INAH

She said that both Zapotec and Mixtec people used the tomb, the latter leaving human remains, jewels and precious materials that were “the relics of their ancestors.”

Robles added that the Mixtec people also held ceremonies at the tomb at which they asked for favours from their deities.

Credit: Héctor Montaño/INAH

The presiding gods of the tomb were Mictlantecuhtli, Mesoamerican god of death and the underworld, and Xipe Tótec, a life-death-rebirth deity. Both are represented in the different objects found by Caso in 1932, Robles said.

The archaeologist explained that the Mixtec people first started carrying out rituals at the tomb around 1350 AD and continued to do so until the early days of the Spanish colonial era.

Credit: Héctor Montaño/INAH

The reopening of “The Treasure of Monte Albán” to the public is part of celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the creation of INAH in 1939.

Source: Mexico News Daily [February 22, 2019]