La Sorpresa Hotel in Mitla, Oaxaca: Gateway to 150 Years of Mexican Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper I will investigate 150 years of Mexican archaeology by analyzing La Sorpresa, a hotel-museum-research center located in Mitla, Oaxaca. Using archival materials, principally photographs and correspondence, I will explore the hotel as a memory space, emphasizing the interactions of archaeologists and travelers who stayed there, considering also the curation and final destiny of the archaeological collections that were displayed in the museum in the second half of the twentieth century. By focusing on the dynamics of this space, my aim is to elaborate a parallel narrative of Mexican archaeological practice and politics from the nineteenth century to the present and tell the compelling story of Oaxaca’s archaeology through the lens of those who participated in the endeavor.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23169