Dictionary:
Za·po·tec (zä'pə-tĕk', sä'pō-)  |
[Spanish Zapoteco, from Nahuatl tzapotēcah, pl. of tzapotēcatl, person from Tzapotlan, from Tzapotlān, place name : tzapotl, sapodilla + tlān, place.]
Zapotec Za'po·tec' adj.| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Zapotec |
For more information on Zapotec, visit Britannica.com.
| Archaeology Dictionary: Zapotec |
An early state-organized society flourishing in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico, during the Formative and Classic stages from about 200 bc through to ad 1000. Zapotec origins are obscure, but they emerge with Monte Alban as their capital, and distinctive material culture including grey ware pottery, in the period 200 bc to ad 200, and are fully developed by ad 300 when further expansion was hampered by the emergence of Teotihuacán. By ad 950 they have largely abandoned Monte Alban and relocated to other centres such as Mitla and Lambiteyeco. By the late Post-Classic stage the Mixtec had begun to infiltrate Zapotec society and they were later heavily absorbed into the Aztec empire. Only small groups remained in historic times. Zapotec culture includes a distinct language.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Zapotec |
The early Zapotec were a sedentary, agricultural, city-dwelling people who worshiped a pantheon of gods headed by the rain god, Cosijo-represented by a fertility symbol combining the earth-jaguar and sky-serpent symbols common in Middle American cultures. A priestly hierarchy regulated religious rites, which sometimes included human sacrifice. The Zapotec worshiped their ancestors and, believing in a paradisaical underworld, stressed the cult of the dead. They had a great religious center at Mitla and a magnificent city at Monte Albán, where a highly developed civilization flourished possibly more than 2,000 years ago. In art, architecture, hieroglyphics, mathematics, and calendar the Zapotec seem to have had cultural affinities with the Olmec, with the ancient Maya, and later with the Toltec.
Coming from the north, the Mixtec replaced the Zapotec at Monte Albán and then at Mitla; the Zapotec captured Tehuantepec from the Zoquean and Huavean of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. By the middle of the 15th cent. both Zapotec and Mixtec were struggling to keep the Aztec from gaining control of the trade routes to Chiapas and Guatemala. Under their greatest king, Cosijoeza, the Zapotec withstood a long siege on the rocky mountain of Giengola, overlooking Tehuantepec, and successfully maintained political autonomy by an alliance with the Aztec until the arrival of the Spanish. The Zapotec today are mainly of two groups, those of the southern valleys in the mountains of Oaxaca and those of the southern half of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; together they number some 350,000. The social fabric of Zapotec life-customs, dress, songs, and literature-though predominantly Spanish, still retains strong elements of the Zapotec heritage, particularly in the present-day state of Juchitán.
Bibliography
See H. Augur, Zapotec (1954); M. Kearney, The Winds of Ixtepeji (1972); B. Chinas, The Isthmus Zapotecs (1973).
| Wikipedia: Zapotec |
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Zapotec". Read more |
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