San Jose Mogote Monument 3 ("Danzante")
composition: contested
witness: the carved slab itself, excavated in situ in 1975; whether it truly belongs to the Late Rosario phase (c. 600 BC) or was reset later and is broadly contemporaneous with the Monte Alban Danzantes (as late as 200 BC or after) is disputed among specialists
A carved stone slab laid as a corridor doorstep at San Jose Mogote in the Etla Valley of Oaxaca depicts a sacrificed, prone captive with his heart removed and, carved between his feet, a calendrical day-name glyph commonly read '1 Earthquake' or '1 Motion': among the earliest attested Zapotec writing and, by some readings, among the earliest writing anywhere in Mesoamerica, conventionally dated c. 600 BC (Marcus 1992), though Cahn and Winter argue Monument 3 may instead have been reset later and be broadly contemporaneous with the Monte Alban Danzantes, as late as 200 BC or after, so its placement in the Late Rosario phase is a live dispute among specialists rather than a settled fact.
- the earliest carved stone at San Jose Mogote bearing a Zapotec glyph, found in situ in 1975
- a sacrificed-captive image paired with a calendrical day-name glyph between his feet
- carved shortly before San Jose Mogote's population relocated to found Monte Alban
- dated c. 600 BC by Marcus, but Cahn and Winter argue for a date as late as 200 BC or later, roughly contemporaneous with the Monte Alban Danzantes
Discovered in situ in 1975 by archaeologist Joyce Marcus while excavating near San Jose Mogote's main temple, Monument 3 was set horizontally into a corridor floor so that anyone entering would step on the carved image of a defeated enemy: a nude, prone figure whose chest shows two streams of blood marking where his heart was removed, ending in a paired blood-drop sign already in use at the site in the earlier Guadalupe phase. Between the captive's feet is a small glyph pairing a bar-and-dot numeral with a day sign, read by specialists as the captive's calendrical name, '1 Earthquake' (also translated '1 Motion'). The monument was carved, on ceramic and stratigraphic grounds, less than a century before San Jose Mogote's leaders relocated to found Monte Alban, where hundreds of comparable carved captives, the Danzantes, continue the same convention of a slain figure paired with a calendrical name (see the separate Zapotec Monte Alban entry). Opinions differ on Monument 3's own date: Marcus places it around 600 BC, in the Late Rosario phase, while Cahn and Winter argue it may have been reset later and is broadly contemporaneous with the Danzantes, as late as 200 BC or after; because of this dispute, Monument 3 is usually described as among the earliest, rather than definitively the earliest, instance of Zapotec or Mesoamerican writing.
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