Climb every pyramid

That's Harv's motto. But even he had to relent when confronted by up to 20 unexcavated mounds at Cerro de la Campana....

Yesterday we visited two minor, partially excavated and restored archeological sites in the valley north of Oaxaca: San Jose el Mogote and Cerro de la Campana near Suchilquitongo. It's interesting to see the unrestored ruins, because it gives you an idea of what these places looked like before the tourism people/"archeologists" got ahold of them. (if the archeologist that we met a couple of weeks ago is correct, many of the "restorations" that are done to archeological sites in Mexico are somewhat dubious in their authenticity). It's also really interesting to see how the local villagers relate to these ruins in their midst.

Cerro de la Campana was the more impressive of the two sites. It's on a high hilltop overlooking the village of Suchilquitongo and has a stunning view up the Oaxaca valley towards Monte Alban. Cerro de la Campana has, we're told, up to 20 mounds on various adjacent hillsides that were once sub-temples. We only spotted the most obvious 10-12 of them amongst the brush and dry grass, and only climbed the 3 largest partially restored buildings.

We were the only people visiting the site that Wednesday morning, except for someone who appeared to be the site's keeper who appeared suddenly in a pickup truck as we were parking the car. He didn't say much to us, just sat in the shade and monitored our movements around the site. We're pretty sure he was there to make sure we made no attempt to break into the locked tomb containing beautifully preserved wall paintings from about 600AD. Not open to the public, unfortunately.

Interestingly, the site is not always so deserted. Apparently as part of their saint's day celebrations the local Zapotec villagers have processions up to a cross they've placed at the peak of the tallest temple. No one may have visited the community museum since December 4th, but the ruins that their ancestors built are very much still a part of the community.

The villagers of San Jose el Mogote have a very different relationship to their ruins: they've built a big chunk of their village over most of the site, and seem to have installed a gravel pit over part of it. The only thing that is really visible is a large partially restored pyramid behind the community museum. And given the remains scattered over it, the burro and horse we saw tethered near by use the pyramid as a grazing ground.

But this site is also amazing: in 1975 archeologists excavated a stelae from a tomb underneath this pyramid that contains the oldest dated glyph in the Americas: from 750 BC. The Mesoamerican calendar and dating system (with it's 260 day ritual year and it's 365 day "real" year, and the long count that distinguished dates in different 52 year cycles) required a sophisticated understanding of astronomy and mathematics, including almost certainly knowledge of the concept of "zero". For context, the ancient Greeks and Romans never did develop the zero (although the Babylonisns came up with the idea in 300 BCE, it didn't catch on, leaving Europeans with the joy of multiplying XVII by CXV until Hindu and Arabic mathematicians spared us the arithmetic of Roman numerals by the Renaissance.)

At least in San Jose el Mogote we weren't the only visitors in the community museum....a group of young local men from the city had tracked down the museum keeper to get him to open it for them just as we arrived, sparing us the effort. So we were able to easily get in and see the stelae and other treasures excavated from the site. Including the vampire. :-)