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San Pablo de Mitla is a town and municipality in Mexico which is most famous for being the site of the Mitla archeological ruins. It is part of the Tlacolula District in the east of the Valles Centrales Region. The town is also known for its handcrafted textiles, especially embroidered pieces and mezcal. The town also contains a museum which was closed without explanation in 1995, since when its entire collection of Zapotec and Mixtec cultural items has disappeared. The name “San Pablo” is in honor of Saint Paul, and “Mitla” is a hispanization of the Nahuatl name “Mictlán.” This is the name the Aztecs gave the old pre-Hispanic city before the Spanish arrived and means “land of the dead.” It is located in the Central Valleys regions of Oaxaca, 46 km from the city of Oaxaca, in the District of Tlacolula.〔 ==Town== The town and municipal seat of Mitla is the commercial and tourism center for the area.〔 Many of the houses in the modern town of Mitla are about 200 years old, in a rustic colonial style. In many of these houses are weaving and embroidery workshops which sell to the public. The town has a cultural center or “Casa de Cultura,” which offers classes such as those in traditional dance. There is a small open-air Handcrafts Market just outside the archeological zone. Most of crafts made and sold here are textiles, including hand-woven and hand-embroidered traditional clothing, hammocks, sarapes, rugs, handbags, tablecloths and other items. Necklaces and bracelets are braided from fibers and decorated with beads, seeds, small stones and/or ceramic figures. Many of the designs found on the textiles here come from pre-Hispanic codices and based on Zapotec mythological figures, but more moderns images such as those from modern Mexican painters can be found as well. The town has two churches, one dedicated to Saint John the Apostle and the other dedicated to Saint Paul.〔 When the Spanish arrived in the 1520s, nothing rivaled pre-Hispanic Mitla as a religious center in the Oaxaca Valley. In 1544, the church of San Pablo was established on part of the ruins of the old Zapotec religious complex. The church sits on a pre-Hispanic platform which now functions as the atrium. Access to the church is through a portal decorated with pyramid-shaped crests and a niche.〔 The church is 39 meters long and twelve wide, with three naves enclosed by lanterned octagonal domes. The vaults were constructed later, perhaps in the 19th century. The squared apse is closed with a circular dome and cupola is not as high as the nave and is likely from the 16th century. Behind it is a larger octagonal dome that encloses the sanctuary, with one other dome enclosing the choir. The wall of the south atrium was originally part of a pre-Hispanic structure and still contains the mosaic fretwork which defines the Zapotec site.〔 The interior of the church is notable for a large number of 16th-century and other colonial-era ''santos'' (statues of the saints), many of them done in well-preserved polychrome.〔(Santos in Oaxaca's Ancient Churches: San Pablo Mitla ). Retrieved 2012-04-13.〕 The patron saint of the town, Saint Paul, is celebrated in January with a procession that begins at the Church of San Pablo in the archeological site, passes through the town cemetery and ends at the town center. Drinks of mezcal are offered free to attendees. Most of the population participates in the procession as well as musical groups, and fantasy figures such as giant monkeys are made for the occasion.〔 On Benito Juarez Street in very near the Plaza Central is the Frissell Museum building. It was an inn named La Sorpresa, that operated mostly in the latter 19th century and early 20th by the Quero family. In the 1950s, the building was sold to American Edwin Robert Frissell. Frissell collected a large number of archeological pieces with which the museum was founded. The museum’s collection was enhanced with donations by Howard Leigh, who collected Zapotec art, and moved his collection here from the city of Oaxaca. The museum was inaugurated in 1950 and was sponsored by a civil association called the Junta Cultural Zapoteca de Mitla. The museum had various rooms in which the pieces were displayed to show the evolution of Zapotec and Mixtec art. Pieces included ceramics such as urns, jars, braziers and mortars,〔 those made of jade and obsidian, a large number of idols, axes and other pieces. The museum's collection is estimated at between 40,000 and 80,000 pieces,〔 and it was known as having the largest collection of Zapotec cultural items.〔 The museum was closed without explanation in 1995 and from then until 2001, no one had any idea what was happening. From 2001 Rufino Aguilar Quero and attorneys investigated, and found contracts that specified the conditions of the donations of the pieces by Frissell to UDLA.〔 Frissell stipulated that upon his death, the Mexico City College (today UDLA) would have control of the collection and could not cede it to another institution. Another stipulation was that none of the pieces could be separated from the collection.〔 A local newspaper reported that the museum building had been sold to José Murat Casab for 1.5 million pesos, against Frissell’s stipulation that the pieces and the building remain together.〔〔 Sometime between 1995 and 2007, the museum's entire collection disappeared, along with paintings by León Zurita, the visitor log and a stamp collection.〔〔 In early 2007, Samuel Quero Martínez, Rufino Aguilar Quero and Robert Luís Arreola, residents of Mitla, denounced the sacking of the museum and sale of its pieces,〔 with the government of Oaxaca being suspected of having a role in the affair.〔 Formal charges were filed in 2008.〔 The dean of UDLA has denied the charges, and denies that the pieces were in the school's responsibility when they were found to be missing, but rather the property of INAH as "property of the nation". The dean claims that the university is not fit to manage such a museum and handed over the management of it to INAH. He also denies selling the building to José Murat Casab, but did make it available to the government of the state of Oaxaca with the possibility of sale.〔 The museum remains closed, supposedly for remodeling. Discussions about the fate of the museum and its collection resurfaced in June 2009, when a group of Mitla residents petitioned INAH for the return of at least thirty percent of the museum's collection.〔 Meanwhile, the formal investigation is ongoing, as the site is being used as a restaurant and inn.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「San Pablo Villa de Mitla」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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