Date

Circa 1910

The Columns Group, Grand Hall of Columns. It measures 120 by 21 feet (37 by 6.4 m) and has six columns of volcanic stone that once supported the roof. Site of a Pre-Columbian Zapotec and Mixtec city in the eastern arm of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Excavations have revealed that Mitla was a small Zapotec town around AD 400. Mixtec rule began c. AD 1000, when the city became a royal burial centre, but even then most of the population was still probably Zapotec. Mitla (Nahuatl: 'Arrow place', a corruption of 'Miquitla', 'Death place', which was a rough translation of Zapotec 'Lyobaa', 'Inside-tomb') comprises groups of surviving palaces and platforms that are a late part of the ancient community, most of which lies under the modern town. The palaces for which it is known were probably built during the 14th century AD, when Mixtec rulers dominated the Valley of Oaxaca and many Zapotecs had migrated east to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.