Zapotec Tomb Discovery Called Mexico’s Most Important Find in a Decade

Close up of owl beak over a face above the entrance to the Zapotec tomb found in Mexico

January

/ 2026

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A remarkably well-preserved Zapotec tomb dating to around AD 600 has been announced by Mexico’s government and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), with officials calling it the country’s most important archaeological discovery of the last ten years because of its condition and the information it can yield. The tomb’s sculpture and surviving mural painting are already being hailed as a rare “window” into Zapotec ritual life, social hierarchy, and beliefs about death.

The find was made in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, in the municipality of San Pablo Huitzo, after INAH followed up on a complaint about looting, an origin story that underlines how much heritage still depends on rapid response and protection once sites are flagged.

Entrance to the antechamber and a burial chamber. (Luis Gerardo Peña Torres/INAH)

A Tomb Marked by an Owl—and a Face in Its Beak

According to INAH’s announcement, the tomb includes an antechamber and a burial chamber, both featuring elaborate carved stonework and painted elements. The most striking feature is a large owl decorating the entry, an animal associated in Zapotec belief regarding night and death.

One of the most memorable details described by INAH and repeated by later reporting, the owl’s beak curves over a painted stucco face thought to represent a Zapotec lord, possibly an ancestor figure linked to the tomb’s purpose and later veneration.

This kind of ancestor emphasis is especially intriguing in Oaxaca, where elite burials and commemorations were deeply tied to power, legitimacy, and intercession with the divine. The tomb’s iconography suggests it was never meant to be merely functional it was designed to communicate status and sacred meaning to those who approached it.

Researchers examining the owl and Zapotec face over the tomb entrance

Decoration above the entry features a large owl over a Zapotec face, possibly a Lord. (Luis Gerardo Peña Torres/INAH)

Murals, Copal, and a Procession Frozen in Time

Inside, INAH reports surviving sections of mural painting in situ, a rare gift to researchers because murals are often the first elements to degrade once a sealed space is opened. The polychrome palette includes ochre, white, green, red, and blue, and depicts a procession of figures carrying bags of copal, a resin widely used as incense in ritual contexts.

Heritage Daily notes that the discovery helps sharpen current understanding of Zapotec social structures, burial customs, and cosmological ideas during the Classic period, in part because so much of the decorative program has survived.

Part of the muraled wall. (Luis Gerardo Peña Torres/INAH)

Conservation First, Then the Long Work of Interpretation

INAH says an interdisciplinary team at Centro INAH Oaxaca is carrying out conservation, protection, and research work, including stabilizing murals threatened by roots, insects, and abrupt environmental changes—hazards that can rapidly damage exposed paint layers.

At the same time, specialists are conducting ceramic, iconographic, epigraphic, and physical anthropology studies to build a fuller picture of who was buried here, how the burial was staged, and what the imagery meant to the community that created it.

In Oaxaca, discoveries like this also echo wider Zapotec mortuary traditions known from monumental centers and “cities of the dead” across the region—reminding us that tombs were not only final resting places, but stages where history, religion, and political memory were made visible. (For related context, see Ancient Origins’ coverage of Zapotec sacred landscapes at Mitla, long linked to underworld traditions.)

Top image: Entrance to a Zapotec tomb in Oaxaca featuring an owl relief above the doorway. Source: Luis Gerardo Peña Torres/INAH

By Gary Manners