Zapotec
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Monte Alban (white mountain), the ancient Zapotec capital, 9 km/6 mi west of Oaxaca, Mexico. Building began in c.500 BC, and it became the centre of the Zapotec people and culture of Oaxaca until c.750 AD when it suffered a sudden decline and the people moved down into the surrounding valleys.
An American Indian people of southern Mexico, now numbering approximately 250,000, living mainly in Oaxaca. The Zapotec language, which belongs to the Oto-Mangean family, has nine dialects. The ancient Zapotec built the ceremonial centre of Monte Albán 1000–500 BC. They developed one of the classic Mesoamerican civilizations by AD 300, but declined under pressure from the Mixtecs from 900 until the Spanish Conquest in the 1530s.
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