The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-05-08
Vagabond
from
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

EDITORS NoTE-This rowing reporter
for The Times goes where be pIeases.
when be plesses, in search Of odd stories
sbeut this and that.
nAXACA. Mexico, May S.-Mitla
~ and Monte Alban are two Of
Mexico's most famous ruins-In-
dian cities put there centuries be-
fore Columbus discovered America.
They aren't at the top of the list,
but they would fall among the 10
most interesting.
They are as different as two sets
of ruins could be. I saw them both
in one day. I should have spent
more time.
Militia is about Is miles from
Oaxaca. We hired a car, and made
the trip down in about two hours
over a rough, gravel road.
There is town called Militia. It
is a drab little place, with tall cac-
Ntus fences, and much dust. 1t lies
on a dusty, barren plain. at the
foot of scorched mountains.
The Militia ruins are a couple Of
blocks from the town. They stand
on rise, bare and alone. I didn't
like them. They gave me feeling
of death. The desert wind sweeps
lonesomely across the bleached,
standing stone. 1t speaks, as it
blows, of timelessness and futility.
like the prairie winds of our own
Midwest.
MILITIA was there when the
4V1 Spaniards came. Spanish
chroniclers described it in 1880. It
wasn't covered with earth like most
of the ruins.
1t was a city. apparently. From
its looks, would judge it to have
been the capital of kingdom, the
palace of monarch. Quite a few
buildings are scattered around,
buildings with patios and many
rooms, all made of gray stone. all
one story, all without roofs now,
their tops open to the sum-
Two things stand out in the Nit
la structures-the mosaic work, and
the immensely of the stones.
The walls, both inside and out,
are done in mosaicS. There are.
thousands, maybe hundreds of
thousands, of small pieces OF stone,
about an inch thick and four or five
inches long, cut with the precision
OF a lathe. These were then fitted
on to the face of the stone wall in
patterns.
TN ONE building at Militia there is
l. great single piece of stone over
doorway. 1t is IS feet long and 4
feet square, and weighs $4,000
pounds. 1t was cut from a quarry
three miles away, and brought over,
and raised into place.
have warm and excited feeling
about Monte Alban. 1t is alive, and
still mostly undiscovered.
The ruins stand on a mountain
top, thousand feet above Oaxaca.
It's six miles by car from the city,
over precipitous road. The top of
the mountain is fiat, and covers
maybe 40 acres. There is whole
city of pyramids, laid out in forma-.
ton around plaza.
I didn't count them, but there
must be Is or 20 uncovered, and
that many more still to be dug into.
Whereas at Militia the structures
are all buildings as we know build
ings today-straight, solid stone
walls, inclosing rooms-at Monte
Alban the structures are all pyra-
mids.
THE pyramids are made Of rough
i brown stones, with cement be-
tween them, the whole thing put
together roughly. 1t is a much
poorer construction job than that
at Militia.
Some of the pyramids are pretty
crumbly when uncovered by the
scientists, and the government is
rebuilding them.
1t was here at Monte Alban, four
years ago, that the Mexican DR..
Casa bumped into Tomb No. z and
dug out the now famous Monte Al
ban jewels. You can see them in
the museum at Mexico City. Mag
nificent necklaces and masks of
gold; silver work, rock crystel, OBJ
sidian. pearl, jade. turquoise and I
don't know what all
I crawled back into Tomb No. z.
It's about Is feet long and four
feet wide, and you can stand up
in it by STOPPING a little. I thought
what elation must have been DIR.
Casa's when his shovel first opened
the tomb, and when he saw, glis-
tening in the dirt. the things that
civilized men had hidden there
centuries before we achieved a civil
liZation of our own.
And it is some such place as
Monte Alban that some shovel, some
day, may unearth the secret of all