In Guadalajara, kidney disease patients and their supporters demanded access to immunosuppressants and other life-saving drugs.
People with kidney problems and kidney transplant recipients have faced a shortage of medications in the public health system for the past five years, and the situation appears to be getting worse.
According to patients’ testimonies cited by Radio Fórmula, there is a shortage of mycophenolic acid, sirolimus, tacrolimus and ciclosporin, which are all immunosuppressants used by kidney transplant recipients. There is also a shortage of some drugs used by people on dialysis, and the price of others is prohibitive in many cases.
Cero Desabasto (Zero Shortage), a group that monitors the availability of medications in the public health system and pressures the government to keep up the supply, reported that kidney transplant patients lodged 157 complaints about the lack of medications in the second quarter of last year. Shortages have been reported at public hospitals in Mexico City, México state and Jalisco.
Mexico City resident Paola Jaguey, whose body rejected a transplanted kidney because she couldn’t access the medications she needed, said that shortages began in 2017 but were limited to some hospitals.
“Now the shortage is at a national level,” Jaguey said.
Patients without functional kidneys have to undergo dialysis three times a week, a time-consuming procedure with significant health risks.
Ileana Durán — a 39-year-old, two-time transplant recipient who has had kidney problems since she was nine — also said that shortages began in 2017, before worsening the following year.
“This isn’t a new issue. We’ve been seeing it for five years. I never lacked anything before, maybe [the medications] were of a lower quality, but they were available. Today they’re not,” she said.
Durán, who created a network that helps kidney patients get the medications they need, said that the problem has been raised with lawmakers but no progress has been made. Kidney patients are “completely forgotten,” she said.
Protests against the shortages were scheduled to be held Thursday – World Kidney Day – in several states, including Jalisco, Puebla and Baja California.
At a protest outside the federal Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, Paola Soria, 29, told the newspaper Reforma that her body rejected the kidney she received from her mother because she couldn’t get the drugs she needed from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), a major health care provider.
As a result of losing the kidney last year, Soria has to undergo dialysis at least three times a week. She said that the medication she needs to take to avoid anemia while on dialysis isn’t available at her local IMSS hospital on the south side of Mexico City and she thus has to pay for it out of her own pocket.
Daniel Pérez, another of the approximately 30 kidney patients at the Mexico City protest, said that he feared he would lose the kidney his father gave him two years ago due to the lack of immunosuppressants.
He said that the IMSS La Raza hospital in the capital was unable to fill his prescription for an immunosuppressant on six occasions last year. “It costs 4,000 pesos [US $190] a jar, and I need two jars a month,” Pérez said.
Children with cancer, whose parents have protested on countless occasions in recent years, have been the most visible victims of drug shortages, but HIV patients and adult cancer patients, among others, have also faced difficulties in getting the medications they need.
In 2020, the author rode the Chihuahua al Pacifico touring line, aka "El Chepe," and disembarked in El Fuerte, Sinaloa. chepe.mx
It was 2019 when I arrived at El Fuerte, Sinaloa, with the plan of taking El Chepe, the train more formally known as the Chihuahua al Pacifico, across the 650 kilometers that covers the Copper Canyon.
That night, I stayed in the heart of town at the Posada del Hidalgo, a hotel believed to be the site of the real El Zorro’s house. The porter guided me through cavernous, wood-paneled rooms adorned with ferns and yuccas and woven textiles.
El Zorro, whose name in Spanish means “the fox,” was based on Joaquín Murrieta, a forty-niner and charro (cowboy) whose existence is disputed. But some of the reported incidents of his life are emblematic of the times. He encountered prejudice and hostility in the miner camps; according to one story, his wife was raped by American miners who were jealous of her husband’s success.
Like his fictional counterpart, he was a celebrated vigilante but with an important difference: unlike the character, sanitized for American readers with “noble” European blood, Murrieta was a Mexican born on the border with Sinaloa in the Sonora desert.
At sunset, the hotel staged a Happy Hour featuring a fat, masked and caped Zorro who waved his arms around and recounted his acts of insurrection against the new colonialists, the Americans. Through a jungle of potted plants, I saw him in the courtyard as a mariachi band drowned out his act.
A version of the legendary masked vigilante El Zorro entertains guests at the Posada del Hidalgo hotel. Posada del Hidalgo
I bypassed the bar and headed for town.
Behind the smooth stones of the central plaza, an alley led to a smaller plaza dotted with kiosks and locals sitting on stools, lunching on fried chicken. I sat on an orange plastic chair at a yellow plastic table with a fan and a fly trap above me.
At the next table sat a young Mexican couple, Julio and María, who wanted to practice their English. They were surprised to see a solitary white woman traveling in Sinaloa but were glad to tell me about their country.
“The people are poor here,” Julio started, pulling grilled meat off the bones and licking his fingers. “The drug trade mostly affects the indigenous people.”
Julio was intelligent and articulate about a subject that occupies the thoughts of many Mexicans: drug trafficking and the correct response to it.
“There is no welfare system in Mexico, so what are people supposed to do? Drug cartels pay mountain farmers to grow crops, process the harvest, guard the estates. They provide jobs for young guys who want to feed their families.”
The Posada del Hidalgo in El Fuerte, Sinaloa. Posada del Hidalgo
Put like this, working for a narcotraficante seems a reasonable choice.
Both Julio and María had the sleek plumpness of young Mexicans on a low income. The folds of flesh amplified their inherent sweetness of nature. But Mexicans are suffering from an obesity epidemic and a diabetes emergency, affecting the poorest of the poor. In Mexico City, I had seen rich Mexicans sipping smoothies, toned and sleek and sophisticated. For the rest, Coca-Cola is often more available than fresh water.
But everyone talks about the evils of the cartels.
“We’ve had the finger pointed at us,” Julio continued. “But it’s not just us, it’s the U.S. Every time someone in New York buys a gram of cocaine, they are buying guns for the cartels. They want the drugs. They keep the business going.”
“Ordinary Mexicans are good people,” added María. “We have to live side by side with the cartels. We keep quiet.”
“Keep your head down and you will live longer,” said Julio, swigging from a bottle of Coca-Cola.
In El Fuerte, cartels make their presence clear: threatening signs have been put up in public, and in 2019, criminals fired upon El Fuerte’s police headquarters.
In other words, the code of silence was best not broken. You want to survive, you keep your mouth shut. I turned back to Julio and María, who happily consumed their liquid crack, and asked if they knew any narcos.
“You’ll see them in Suburbans and Hummers,” he said. “They drive 4x4s because they can go on any road and fit a lot of people. As a truck driver myself, if I go down roads where the narcos have settlements, I will see their security guards and they will stop me. They’ll ask what I’m doing, ask how long I’m going to be in the area. They’ll take down my license plate. Then they know that if they see me again, they can leave me alone. I’ve never had a problem with the narcos.”
As for the police, he explained that narcos are receiving weapons directly from the United States.
“High-capacity weapons. They have the money to buy them. Our local police are given an old gun with five bullets. ‘I’m not getting paid enough’ is their response to policing the cartels. ‘I want to go home tonight.’
“So when the government sends them to kill a narco, the narco asks, ‘Who sent you?’ The cops say, ‘Our captain.’ The narco says, ‘Well, OK. Let’s go kill him. And here’s some money for telling me.’”
Later, back in my vaulted chamber of the hotel, the night drew in, and the sinuous streets that circle the Posada del Hidalgo lit up with sound systems piled into the cabs of dusty pickups. Young people made a desultory cruise of the town.
Poppy farming in Sinaloa. Fernando Brito/mexicoviolence.org
Having realized that I’d lost my phone charger, I came out to buy a replacement at the local Oxxo, the spearhead of American-style consumerism. A huge container truck lumbered past in the distance, carrying its product to the furthest reaches of the state.
The darkness of the Mexican night was scintillating, and I could understand the youths’ quest for adventure. As I got further from the main plaza, a gleaming, white Toyota SUV 4×4 parked on the corner drew my attention. It was incongruously new and expensive, yet its occupants were inexpensively dressed indigenous men. They sat motionless, watching the other trucks coast past.
There was some force beneath their inertness that could explode at any moment. I felt conflicted as I always do in the presence of danger. Should I approach it, appease it, stroke it like a dog? Or walk away?
Together with Chihuahua and Durango, Sinaloa comprises the golden triangle of Mexican states where the narcotics trade has coalesced. Until the 1990s, the farmers here had been living above the subsistence level, selling their surplus corn to buy farm equipment, pickup trucks and materials for their houses.
Then, in 1994, came NAFTA, which put them in direct competition with U.S. corporate agriculture — followed by 10 years of drought.
The only new trucks in town are those owned by farmers of the only export crop left to grow.
Lilian Pizzichini is the English author of four works of biography and memoir, the latest being The Novotny Papers (2021). She has taught creative writing in prisons and universities, worked in journalism and is now writing the travel memoir Ancona/Zadar. Find out more about her on her Instagram page.
The anchor was uncovered by construction on the Progreso malecón.
An enormous anchor has been unearthed in Progreso, Yucatán, the state’s most important port city.
The anchor,which is three meters long, has an arm span of two meters and weighs approximately 1.5 tonnes,was first spotted Tuesday in the malecón (seaside promenade) area of Progreso, which is currently being upgraded. It was uncovered by heavy machinery after paving was removed.
A citizen reported the find to authorities and experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) cordoned off the site on Wednesday before removing the anchor.
The newspaper Diario de Yucatán reported that it’s believed that it belonged to a steamboat of the kind that used to arrive in Progreso some 100 years ago.
Progreso Mayor Julián Zacarías Curi said on Twitter that the anchor will be cleaned and restored by the relevant authorities in order to identify any engraving that might indicate its origin.
“The history our beloved port holds is invaluable,” he wrote, adding that the anchor was found during remodeling work on the malecón.
INAH Yucatán chief Eduardo López Calzada said that researchers will carry out tests to determine the approximate age of the anchor. He noted that it is an admiralty anchor, also known as a fisherman anchor.
Among other artifacts that have been unearthed during public works projects in Mexico are a gold ingot apparently lost by Spanish conquistadores when they were fleeing the pre-Hispanic city of Tenochtitlán in 1520, and relics related to a “new fire” ceremony carried out by the Mexica people every 52 years to mark the beginning of a new calendar cycle.
INAI commissioner Norma Julieta Del Río Venegas proposed the ruling at a virtual session on Wednesday.
The federal access to information agency (INAI) has ruled that the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) must deliver privacy notices related to the Maya Train project in a range of indigenous languages.
Such notices have been issued to people whose land has been expropriated for the construction of the 1,500-kilometer railroad, which will run through Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo. They set out citizens’ privacy rights and explain how their personal details will be protected, the newspaper Reforma reported.
INAI said in a statement that it ruled that Fonatur, which is managing the Maya Train project, must offer the privacy notices in Mayan, Mixtec, Chinantec, Mazatec, Mixe and other languages in the Mayan, Oaxaca Chontal, Uto-Nahuatl and Mixe-Zoque linguistic families.
“Indigenous people, like any person, have the right to be informed in their language,” said INAI commissioner Norma Julieta Del Río Venegas when proposing the ruling at a virtual meeting attended by the seven commissioners on Wednesday.
She noted that the Federal Transparency Law “establishes the obligation” to provide information to people in indigenous languages.
INAI’s ruling came after a person asked Fonatur for privacy notices and other information related to a property expropriation in a range of indigenous languages.
According to INAI, Fonatur responded that it wasn’t able to attend to the request and suggested that it be directed to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning.
Unhappy with the response, the claimant appealed to INAI, complaining specifically about Fonatur’s failure to provide translated privacy notices.
INAI said the appeal it received didn’t complain about the failure to provide an expropriation decree and other information in the desired indigenous languages so its directive to Fonatur doesn’t extend to those documents.
Indigenous communities have previously complained about not being properly consulted about the US $8 billion project, which is slated to begin operations in late 2023, although a federal court recently suspended environmental permits for three sections.
In 2019, the Mexico office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights raised a range of concerns about the consultation process prior to a vote on the project, among which was that translations of information into indigenous languages were inadequate, if they existed at all.
Krispy Kreme México plans to open as many as 190 sales locations this year, according to Javier Rancaño, the company’s director.
Mexico has become the company’s fastest growing market and could soon become the second largest market for its doughnuts after the United States, Rancaño told Forbes México.
During the pandemic, Krispy Kreme expanded doughnut sales in Oxxo convenience stores, supermarkets and by delivery, the director said. Its delivery options were popular, sometimes accounting for as much as 30% of total sales.
The main limitation on the business is not the market or level of demand but rather the logistics of distributing a perishable product and production infrastructure, Rancaño said. To that end, the company is reinvesting nearly all its profits into growth.
“We are reinvesting practically all the earnings from Mexico. During the next few years, the idea is to grow Mexico as much as we can because at the international level, Mexico is Krispy Kreme’s fastest growing market,” Rancaño said.
This year’s new locations represent an investment of several hundred million pesos, and the company has also started planning for a new factory in Querétaro.
At the moment, the United States is the largest market for its doughnuts globally, Rancaño shared. It is followed by three markets of similar size: the United Kingdom, Australia and Mexico.
Protesters hang photos of murdered journalists at a January demonstration in Mexico City. Archive
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the federal government’s “inaction” after the murder of yet another journalist last week.
The body of Juan Carlos Muñiz was found with multiple gunshot wounds in a taxi in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, last Friday. Muñiz was a reporter for Fresnillo news website Testigo Minero and other outlets, as well as a taxi driver.
He is the eighth media worker to be killed this year, at least six of whom were practicing journalists.
The CPJ, a New York-based non government organization, said Wednesday that authorities must immediately and thoroughly investigate Muñiz’s murder and determine whether he was killed because of his journalism. Federal government communications coordinator Jesús Ramírez has already said that a through investigation will be carried out and that the crime will not go unpunished.
CPJ Mexico representative Jan-Albert Hootsen said that the “brutal slaying” of Muñiz extended Mexico’s “staggering streak of journalist killings in 2022.”
The murder is “a stark example of the extreme risk that local reporters covering politics and crime face on a daily basis,” he said.
“The Mexican government’s inaction allows the impunity that fuels these attacks to fester and cement its abysmal status as the hemisphere’s deadliest country for journalists.”
President López Obrador has also been accused of fomenting hostility toward journalists and the media more broadly via his repeated verbal attacks on critical press at his morning news conferences.
On Wednesday he took aim at television and radio presenter Azucena Uresti, criticizing her for describing Mexico City as a “walled city” due to the barricades installed around the National Palace, Metropolitan Cathedral and other buildings and monuments to protect them during Tuesday’s International Women’s Day march.
López Obrador said it was clear that Uresti “doesn’t like us” and will use anything she can against the government. He mocked her for broadcasting from the “walled” headquarters of the Milenio media group and compared her to other journalists he frequently derides, including Carlos Loret de Mola, as well as foreign newspapers he regards as mouthpieces of conservatism and private companies.
“They defend vested interest groups and they’re against governments that seek to combat corruption and help the poor. They’re media outlets of the oligarchy, to say it clearly – those here and those there [in the United States and other foreign countries],” López Obrador said.
No señor Presidente @lopezobrador_ yo no recibo consigna, no estoy a favor de grupos de intereses creados. Le pido, de la manera más respetuosa, mostrar las pruebas de sus dichos.
Ivana Naomi Millán Flores in the laboratory. Tec de Monterrey
A university student in México state has been selected to participate in an astrobiology program at NASA.
Ivana Naomi Millán Flores, 22, spent hours staring through her telescope at the night sky as a child. Now in her eighth semester in biotechnological engineering at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Tec de Monterrey) México state campus, she has been chosen to join the International Air and Space Program to spend a week at NASA.
Millán was selected due to her investigation into the effects of the absence of gravity on cancer cells.
She is raising money through a crowdfunding campaign to be able to make this trip to NASA in the fall, as she still doesn’t have the funds to cover transport and accommodation.
Millán said that inspiring women to study engineering is one of her main motivations.
Millán has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund her participation in the NASA program.
“My priority is to return to Mexico to share the knowledge with those who want to be part of these projects. I think a big problem with women studying engineering is the lack of representation and exposure in the media,” she said. “… On social media I’ve received a lot of messages from girls who say they want to go to NASA when they grow up. It touches my heart to be able to be that example that I would have liked to have as a child.”
“I’m not going to NASA alone. I’ll take with me all the Latin American and Mexican women who want to make a change in their community,” she said.
Millán added that her openness to new experiences had been of benefit to her.
“I think a lot of people are insecure about doing new things … It’s a very important learning experience. Here you can train like any astronaut, from diving to flying a plane. I want to learn a lot more about the field of aerospace engineering and meet people from all over the world who are passionate about the same thing as me,” she said.
The student also gave credit to her university for helping to shape her character.
“Thanks to Tec I know what it is to be an entrepreneur, to be a leader. I know values like honesty and love … The Tec has given me the tools to be humble and understand that everything we have is to be shared … to put our knowledge at the service and disposal of everyone … to be an agent of change … this wouldn’t have been achieved if I hadn’t studied here,” she said.
Annual inflation rose to 7.28% in February, INEGI reported.
Inflation could increase to close to 10% by the end of the year if inflationary pressures – some of which are related to the war in Ukraine – persist throughout 2022, according to the chief economist at Banco Base.
Annual inflation rose to 7.28% in February from 7.07% in January, according to data published Wednesday by the national statistics agency INEGI.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, is causing prices for some raw materials to rise, which could lead to higher inflation in Mexico.
Bank of America Securities (BofA Securities) has warned that fuel prices in Mexico will increase as a result of the invasion, and has adjusted its end-of-year inflation forecast to 6% from 5%. Banco Base upped its end of 2022 outlook to 5.5% on Wednesday.
That bank’s chief economist, Gabriela Siller, warned that price increases could exceed that forecast, noting that two weeks after the war in Ukraine began, there is a high level of uncertainty with respect to inflation.
“The inflation forecast for the end of the year could be revised toward … 8% if similar inflationary pressures to those seen during January and February are seen between March and June,” she said.
Higher global demand for goods during pandemic-related supply chain disruptions have already fueled inflation, which is currently more than double the Bank of México’s target rate of 3%, give or take a percentage point.
“If the inflationary pressures persist until the end of the fourth quarter, the risk rises that … annual general inflation will approach 10%,” Siller said.
Mexican bank CIBanco also warned of the possibility that higher inflation will be seen due to the higher costs of raw materials including oil.
“In the short term (the end of the second quarter or start of the third) it cannot be ruled out that … [inflation] could approach 8% annually,” it said, noting that such a rate would be the highest since 2000. The bank said that it didn’t expect to see inflation within the central bank’s target range until 2023.
Bank of México board member Jonathan Heath said on Twitter Wednesday that data indicated that core inflation hadn’t peaked in February and will therefore continue to rise. He also said that the conflict in Ukraine will clearly place upward pressure on inflation.
Higher costs of raw materials, including oil, could drive inflation at the pumps and elsewhere.
“High inflation will be more persistent than we had anticipated, both in Mexico and at the global level,” Heath wrote.
The latest inflation data raises expectations that the central bank will continue to increase its benchmark interest rate, which is currently 6%.
“We expect that the Bank of México will lift [rates] 50 basis points in March, May, June, August and September and then return to 25 basis point increases in the last two meetings of the year in November and December,” BofA Securities said.
That would leave the central bank’s benchmark rate at 9% at the end of the year.
BofA Securities is forecasting growth of just 1.5% for the Mexican economy this year, and acknowledged that there are downside risks to that prediction.
It said that higher oil prices – Mexican crude reached its highest price since 2008 on Tuesday – will result in higher revenues for Pemex and other producers, but warned that consumers and the government will spend more on gasoline, the latter due to greater spending on subsidies to limit the price increases at the pump. Motorists would thus be left with less money to spend on other consumer products, which would adversely affect overall growth.
Known as The Sun Man, this is only one part of Lepoldo Flores' massive 71-stained-glass-panel mural, finished in 1980, but it's the most popular with visitors. Gustavo Von
Long gone are the days in Mexico when the equinox had spiritual significance — or are they?
Many of the country’s archeological sites, such as Teotihuacán and Chichén Itzá, bring thousands of people to see the sun rise in these places in March. But in the unassuming industrial city of Toluca, México state, just west of Mexico City, there is a modern “temple” to the cult of the sun.
This building is the site of the former 16 de Septiembre mercado, Toluca’s main market in the early 20th century. Covering about half a hectare, it was built, in art nouveau style, before the Mexican Revolution.
By the end of the 20th century, even this impressive building became too small for its purpose as growing industries swelled the city’s population. The market’s enclosed design meant there was no way to expand it, so it was abandoned for a newer facility in the city.
The government looked to repurpose the building, which was too beautiful and centrally located to let decay. Today, its original large windows allow for a botanical garden here with over 400 species of plants, covering about 3,200 square meters. It is dedicated to Japanese scientist Eizi Matuda, who classified over 6,000 species of plants in this region.
Overview of the botanical garden looking towards the sun panel on the east end. JC Castaneda
But the building’s main attraction is the massive artwork done by local artist Leopoldo Flores.
Flores (1934–2016) is arguably one of the most important Mexican artists to come out of Toluca, creating other monumental works, mostly in the city and the surrounding area. Toluca has created a museum in his honor associated with the state university to safeguard and promote research into many of his works.
His concept for this particular artwork was novel for Mexico, a mural done in multiple panels and using stained glass to take advantage of the window spaces that surround the upper parts of the building and its eastern and western ends.
Flores worked with 60 artisans from 1978 to 1980 to get the sections assembled and installed. It took him a year to work out the artwork’s concept and basic engineering issues. They replaced the market’s old, clear windows with 71 stained glass panels — half a million 15- to 45-centimeter pieces of imported blown glass in 28 different colors.
It all weighs 75 tons: 45 tons of glass, 25 tons of lead and 5 tons of metal supports. It’s so massive that cleaning it — a 15-month process using only water (chemicals could damage the glass), a fine wire brush and rags — involves several people who finish, only to start again.
The piece tells a story of Man and his relationship to the universe, hence its name: Cosmovitral (glass cosmos). According to the artwork’s website, the work represents “… the dualities and antagonism of cosmic forces like day and night, life and death, creation and destruction…” On the north side of the building, blue hues dominate, with brighter colors on the south side. An image of the sun is placed on the east side.
Main entrance to the Cosmovitral building from the plaza. Octavio Alonso Maya
All its panels receive attention from the public, but the most important and popular by far is the Sun Man, a Leonardo da Vinci-like depiction of a male superimposed onto a solar motif, placed not on the east but on the western side of the building on ground level.
It is not only the most impressive and most accessible of Flores’s panels year-round it’s also the site of an impressive effect during the equinox: in the few days before and afterward, the setting sun aligns itself with the torso of the artwork’s male figure, appearing to set the whole work ablaze.
Interestingly enough, Flores did not emphasize this fact when he created the mural, so it is not known whether he was aware of this effect. It was only noticed in 1993 — 13 years after it was installed — by the botanical garden’s director Oliverio Jiménez in 1993.
The best of the spectacle lasts only 20 minutes. These days, a classical music concert worked out specifically for it accompanies the phenomenon. Limited seating inside the building makes the event highly anticipated and difficult to see in person. The spring equinox is far more popular than the one in the fall.
It has become an important tourist attraction for a city with few of them, as well as an important symbol for México state, which lives in the shadow of Mexico’s massive nearby capital city. The image is used heavily in the city and the state’s promotional materials.
However, most of the Cosmovitral’s visitors are from México state and the surrounding region. Very few foreigners are aware of it or its twice-annual spectacle. The site is worth a visit when passing through the area, even if it’s not the equinox. It is the largest secular stained-glass work in the world, and tour guides can explain the meanings of its different panels (in Spanish).
Cosmovitral is also a popular venue for weddings and portrait photos. It is part of a tapestry of other important locations in the city center, including the cathedral, various museums and the surrounding shops and restaurants.
When I lived in Toluca (2003–2008), a massive semipermanent street market that took over a central plaza made visiting difficult. This site has since been moved to another part of town, allowing for better views.
What has not changed is the city’s chilly climate during most of the year, so a sweater or jacket is definitely recommended, especially at night.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Some of the glyphs that have been interpreted at Atzompa.
Researchers with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have announced their interpretation of a large stucco and limestone frieze discovered three years ago at the Atzompa archaeological site, located near the Monte Albán complex just outside Oaxaca city.
INAH said in a statement that the political, economic and social power that the Atzompa residential area had within the Zapotec capital of Monte Albán between A.D. 600 and 900 and the important relations its inhabitants established with the Mixteca region are some of the details revealed through the iconographic interpretation.
The frieze – which contains a series of Zapotec and Mixtec glyphs depicting the Mixtec year of the lizard, numerals, personages and a quetzal, among other things – has a well conserved section measuring 15 meters. The glyphs carved onto it constitute the longest Zapotec text of its kind known to exist in the Oaxaca Valley, according to Nelly Robles García, who heads up an archaeological project at Atzompa.
“Glyphs in general are allusions to power in the city, supernatural protection and a timeless time,” she said.
“Due to the location we know that it’s a message or discourse of power, associated with the use/function of the space of this residence, a message that could be seen when walking … between the main ball court and Ceremonial Plaza A,” Robles said.
The Atzompa site, near Monte Albán in Oaxaca.
She said the care and additional restoration of the frieze are conservation priorities for INAH. It was partially destroyed by the Zapotec inhabitants when they vacated Atzompa at the end of the ninth century, INAH said.
The researcher also noted that there are fragments of a series of carvings on the facade of the Casa del Sur, on which the frieze is located, that are associated with it. They include figurines of monkeys and jaguars and the representation of a quincunx, which INAH described as “a symbol that alludes to the four directions and the center of the universe.”
The carvings are “manifestations of the cosmic world to which the construction of a house like that obeyed,” INAH said.
The Atzompa archaeological zone is situated on a hill north of the UNESCO-protected Monte Albán site. It is open to visitors only on Saturdays and Sundays between 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., according to INAH.
