Zapotec Writing - Famsi

The most common position of the burials, independently of their specific context, was supine
and extended, although in few cases—especially when non-funerary domestic features were reused
for burial purposes, the skeletons appear flexed given the need to fit the size of the cadaver within
the limited space of ad hoc features (Martínez López, Winter and Juárez 1995: 95-96; Romero
1983; Winter et al. 1995: 25-26). Fetuses and neonates were usually placed inside ceramic vessels
(Martínez López, Winter and Juárez 1995: 239), so most often their skeletons are also slightly
flexed.
Although there is much variation in the layout of residential units in the Central Valleys of
Oaxaca, they all conform to a basic quadripartite model in the distribution of domestic space
(Winter 1974). Such a model includes a central open courtyard surrounded by rooms (Figure
3.3). Houses vary in size, number of rooms around the central courtyard, construction materials,
and the applied finishes. While there are some exceptions, masonry tombs were usually built
under the room of the house oriented towards the East. On the other hand, other inhumations
appear under the floor of the courtyard or the floors of the rooms, and sometimes even outside
the confines of the house proper but within the surrounding household plot. The demographic
profiles of burials placed within tombs and those deposited outside them--generated from the
data on age and sex--are quite distinct. Later on I will comment in greater detail the case of
burials placed inside the tombs. As to the inhumations that were done outside the crypts but
within the boundaries of the household units, these include a wide gamut of ages, from fetuses to
old adults. Both sexes are represented in those age categories in which sex can be determined
from skeletal analysis.
It becomes evident that many household units in ancient Zapotec communities had a
diversity of burial types, but it is also a fact that not all known burials were associated to houses.
Several adult burials have been found in contexts that were not exclusively domestic, and others
are associated with architectural complexes of the type known as “Temple-Plaza-Adoratory”
(hereon TPA) (Figure 3.4). For instance, the human remains found in an offering under the one-
roof, that lack an entrance. Graves are simple excavations in a natural or artificial matrix without any
stonework.
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