Zapotec sacred city in the Tlacolula Valley of Oaxaca, second only to Monte Albán among the region's archaeological sites, renowned for its uniquely intricate stone mosaic fretwork ('grecas') covering tombs, panels and palace walls found nowhere else in Mexico. It became the primary religious capital of the Zapotec world as Monte Albán's political power waned, with growing Mixtec architectural and political influence from c. 1000 CE onward.
Still functioning as the seat of the Zapotec high priest (the Uija-tào) when Spanish forces arrived in the 1520s; the Oaxacan archbishop ordered the site's temples destroyed in 1553 and a church built over them, though the town of Mitla remains continuously inhabited today.
The atlas holds 4 border frames for Mitla — the shape you scrub through changes in 750 · 900 · 1080 · 1350.
Classic monograph specifically on Mitla and its Zapotec-speaking region — the standard site-focused ethnographic-historical study.