These Preclassic levels, you will remember, are of the Monte Alban I phase, from which we described early hieroglyphs and numeral in our discussion of the Preclassic Period.
Monte Alban II was a phase of the Protoclassic Period during which this presumably Zapotecan society shared in the general currents of ideas that were moving through southern Mesoamerica. Significant similarities existed, for instance, between the Monte Alban II ceramics and those of the Protoclassic Maya phases, such as Homul I.
In Monte Alban III, influences from Classic Teotihuacan are the most pronounced of any foreign styles, but the local civilization flowered essentially independently.
The Monte Alban site is located on a mountain spur which overlooks the fertile Valley of Oaxaca. Its agricultural support undoubtedly came from numerous small sites in the valley bottomlands. Monte Alban seems primarily to have been a ceremonial or civic-religious center, but hundreds of small house platform dot the slopes of the main hill on which the principal temples and palaces are situated, so that it is probably fair to say that the site was in process of becoming an urban center as well.
The main buildings on the hill summit are extremely impressive. The entire hilltop has been leveled and dressed, creating a plaza that measures 300 by 200 meters, and this plaza is surrounded on four sides by platform, pyramids, temples, and a ball court. In the center of the complex are three more large mounds. Construction is fill and dressed-stone facings, and the general appearance of the mounds and buildings resembles Teotihuacan in the rather plain, severe lines that are broken only by tablero-talud type terraces and panels.
There are at Monte Alban, however, some Classic Period stelac carved whit figures and hieroglyphs. Classic Period tombs with either flat or corbelled vaults were placed in the terraces of platforms or under patios. Some of these tombs bear interior frescoes of gods, man, and hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Classic Period ceramics were primarily polished gray pieces, engraved and incised, and included spouted jars, cylinder jars, floreros, and candeleros. Particularly interesting are the intricately and ornamented urns which were placed in graves. This urn form originated in the earlier Preclassic phases at Monte Alban. Seated gods, hand-sculptured in clay, were modeled on the side of the urn.
These representation depicted such deities as Cocijo, lord of the rain and alter ego of Central Mexican Tlaloc, a maize god, and a feathered-serpent, or Quetzalcoatl counterpart. In pottery, such shapes as the florero and candelero and the Thin Orange ware we have already described reveal Teotihuacan influences.
