✦ The Ancient Atlas

Teotitlán del Valle

SettlementCentral AmericaMexicoZapotec

Zapotec town in the Tlacolula valley, 31 km from Oaxaca at the foot of the Sierra Juárez, known in Zapotec as Xaguixe, the place at the foot of the mountain, and known to everyone else for the wool rugs woven here on hand looms. It is one of the earliest Zapotec foundations in the valley and has kept its language. The reason it is in the atlas is that nobody yet knows what is underneath it. From 2025 a UNAM geophysics team working under INAH has been running ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography across the municipal square, the churchyard and the nave of the church itself, looking for the subterranean layout of the Zapotec centre the living town sits on. This is open work with nothing published. The record is here for the question, not for an answer.

17.0292°, -96.5200°

Open in the Atlas map →

Walkthrough videos (4)

Teotitlan del Valle — Revealing the Cradle of Zapotec CivilizationTeotitlan del Valle — Revealing the Cradle of Zapotec Civilization · The ARX ProjectScanning for LOST ZAPOTEC RUINS | Nuevas investigaciones en Teotitlán del Valle, OaxacaScanning for LOST ZAPOTEC RUINS | Nuevas investigaciones en Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca · The ARX ProjectEmpieza investigación arqueológica en Teotitlán del Valle, OaxacaEmpieza investigación arqueológica en Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca · The ARX ProjectNew Underground Research Project | Teotitlan, the Place of the GodsNew Underground Research Project | Teotitlan, the Place of the Gods · The ARX Project

Nearby sites