Guiengola fortification description and photos - Mexico: Tehuantepec (Topic)

Guiengola site description and photos - Mexico: Tehuantepec. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Guiengola.

Photo and description

Guyengola is a settlement of Indian Mexicans who lived on the territory of the present state of Oaxaca. The ruins rise between the hill and river of the same name. The name of the ancient city from the Zapotec dialect translates as "big stone".

Guyengola was built in the post-classical period (1350 - 1521) and was a fortress that protected from the Aztecs, who never managed to capture it. When the Spaniards invaded the city and evicted the Zapotecs, the conquerors never settled it, the city died out and turned into ruins.

Here were found walls of various structures, fragments of residential buildings and fields for playing ball, tombs and the largest "Palace" with the remains of artificially created reservoirs and outbuildings.

The largest tomb is located in the palace, in the administrative center of the Zapotec fortress. Its chamber is over 9 meters long and slightly less than 2 meters wide. There are two chambers on the sides of the central passage, which is 1 meter wide.

To date, two more large tombs have been excavated, which are most likely family burial sites. Two tombs have frontal chambers for idols and rear chambers for the burials themselves. But there are other smaller tombs, they were found among the walls of the fortifications, the remains of residential buildings. In the center of the settlement there were once two pyramids - in the east and west, and two squares, one below the other, located one above the other.

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Topic: Guiengola fortification description and photos - Mexico: Tehuantepec.