Dainzu Audio Guide for San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya

Inside this guide

1. 01

   Welcome to Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú

   In Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú, this section highlights Welcome to Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Welcome to the Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú, here in the Tlacolula Valley in the eastern part of the Valley of Oaxaca, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. If you are arriving from the Pan-American Highway toward Mitla, you turn south at the crossroads for the village of Macuilxóchitl and follow that road for about one and a half kilometers to the entrance. Take a breath now, and look upslope. This is not a city laid out on flat ground. The monuments here lean into the hill. The name Dainzú was given to the site by the archaeologist Ignacio Bernal, after he learned that local people knew the place by a similar name, Dannizhú — in Zapotec, roughly hill of the organ pipe, a nod to the cactus growing on these slopes. In Zapotec the site is also called Quiebelagayo, the equivalent of the Nahuatl Macuilxóchitl, meaning five flowers — the very name carried today by the nearby town. One honest note before we begin. What we know about Dainzú comes mainly from decades of archaeological research rather than from visitor facilities, so let us explore what the excavations have actually shown us about this Zapotec settlement.

2. 02

   The Ballplayers Carved in Stone

   In Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú, this section highlights The Ballplayers Carved in Stone as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Bring your attention to Building A, and especially to its lower platform, because this is where Dainzú earns its reputation. Carved into the stone here is a gallery of bas-reliefs showing ballplayers — human figures rendered in the posture and gear of the Mesoamerican ballgame. Those sculptures are what set Dainzú apart from other sites in the Valley of Oaxaca. The structures here carry characteristics that the sources describe as unique in the valley, and they reflect a genuine, high quality of artistry. The ballgame across Mesoamerica was never just a sport; it was bound up with ritual and with ideas about how the world worked. Even so, be careful about reading too much into any single panel. What the research documents is the gallery of ballplayer figures themselves; the stories we build on top of them are interpretations, and it is worth knowing the difference. Stand close for a moment. You are looking at the work of sculptors who lived more than two thousand years ago, people who chose to make their community's most public art about the game and the players.

3. 03

   Older Than Monte Albán

   In Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú, this section highlights Older Than Monte Albán as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Dainzú is a Zapotec settlement, and its story starts earlier than many visitors expect. The site was founded during the Rosario phase, around six hundred before the common era. That means it predates the founding of Monte Albán, the great city that would later dominate this region. At that early moment, Dainzú was contemporary with other settlements in the Valley of Oaxaca, such as San José Mogote. Different accounts frame the earliest occupation slightly differently — one suggests it may reach back to seven hundred and fifty before the common era — so treat that founding date as approximate rather than exact. From its founding through the end of the Monte Albán the Second period, around two hundred and fifty of the common era, the settlement grew substantially, and its buildings grew with it. The period usually described as its splendor runs from roughly six hundred before the common era to two hundred of the common era, and one account traces a long sequence of occupation stretching all the way to twelve hundred of the common era, even as the monumental center faded. And here is the surprising part. Even at its height, Dainzú was never the capital. It worked as a second-rank community in economic, political and religious terms, and when Monte Albán eventually declined, Dainzú declined alongside it.

4. 04

   A Center Built Into the Hill

   In Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú, this section highlights A Center Built Into the Hill as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Now look again at how this place sits in the landscape. Dainzú's buildings were adapted to the topography, and the monumental center appears to be, in the words of the sources, recargado — leaning or loaded against the slope of the hill. One reading suggests this was done at least in part for aesthetic reasons: a civic center that presents itself dramatically against the hillside rather than spreading out across the valley floor. The civic and ceremonial heart of the pre-Hispanic settlement occupied the western part of the hill, and it is possible that the hill itself was regarded as a sacred place. The original entrance, meanwhile, lay on the river side at the extreme west, and the site sits in the vicinity of a tributary of the Salado River — water and elevation framing the whole design. And the hill holds more than buildings. Terraces and petroglyphs have been traced into the rock of a nearby hill. Those carvings are another layer of the story, one the architecture alone does not tell you.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   In Zona Arqueológica de Dainzú, this section highlights Before You Head Off as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   So as you move on, carry a couple of questions with you. Why would a community carve its finest public art around ballplayers? What did it actually mean to be a second-rank settlement in a world organized around a city like Monte Albán, and what did it cost when that city faded? The knowledge behind what you have seen rests on generations of research, including the work of archaeologists such as Ignacio Bernal, Arturo Oliveros, Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus and Eric Taladoire. That is your invitation: what you have walked through is a set of answers, but it is also a set of puzzles, and parts of the hill and its surroundings are still only partly understood. Before you go, look once more at the slope, notice the organ pipe cactus that gave this place its name, and let Dainzú ask you its own questions.