Zapotecs (Other Keyword)
1-2 (2 Records)
This paper explores the meaning of butterfly imagery among Classic period Zapotecs of the Valley of Oaxaca. Images of butterflies, or parts of their anatomy, sometimes appear on effigy vessels found in tombs. The effigy vessels represent rulers, or other individuals of high social-standing, as jaguars, owls or the Fire Serpent. I argue that rulers of Zapotec urban centers were perceived to have a number of specific naguales or alter-egos that constitute the moral basis of political power. The...
Lidar Mapping of a Zapotec City: Cultural Hybridity and Ethnogenesis in Postclassic Guiengola, Oaxaca (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will discuss how Zapotecs both continued and innovated the construction traditions from the central valleys of Oaxaca in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by showing the results of the analysis of the lidar scan made during the 2022–2023 field season of the Guiengola Archaeological Project. The archaeological site of...