National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Zapotec Digs in Mexico Show Clues to Rise and Fall


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

For the ancient Zapotec, whose agrarian state thrived in southern Mexico more than 1,000 years ago, no deity was more important than Cocijo, the rain god.

Archaeologists believe Zapotec nobles dressed up as Cocijo to ensure a good harvest. This figure of Cocijo (above) —on an urn found in a tomb underneath a palace near Oaxaca, Mexico—probably represents a person posing as the god.

Photograph by Jesus Eduardo Lopez Reyes