Postclassic Mixtec city-state in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, the pre-eminent Mixtec political center of its era and the dynastic seat of Lord 8 Deer Jaguar Claw (r. early 12th century), whose pictorial codices (Zouche-Nuttall, Bodley) record its rulers and its dynastic ties to the central Mexican Toltecs.
Remained an important Mixtec polity through the Late Postclassic; absorbed into the Aztec tributary sphere and then Spanish colonial New Spain following the conquest of Oaxaca in the 1520s.
Polity-specific study of Tilantongo's ruling dynasty and Lord 8 Deer, built directly from the Mixtec codices.