Cueva de Oxtotitlán

Oxtotitlán is a natural rock shelter on the side of Cerro Quiotepec, a hill once called Quetzaloxtoc, about a kilometre from Acatlán, a Nahua village in the municipality of Chilapa de Álvarez. Its walls carry paintings made around 900 to 600 BC by groups linked to the Olmec culture, and together with the Juxtlahuaca cave they rank among the earliest sophisticated painted art known in Mesoamerica. Unlike Juxtlahuaca, the paintings are not deep underground: they fill two shallow grottoes in a cliff face and the rock above their mouths, covering about 200 square metres. Nobody knows who painted them, or how Olmec imagery from the Gulf Coast reached these hills.

The paintings fall into three groups. In the north grotto they are small and black, showing animals, people and fantastic creatures; the most striking is a man outlined in black with a headdress standing behind a rearing jaguar, often read as the ruler's animal spirit. The south grotto holds red geometric designs. Above the entrance, in the centre, are two large polychrome murals. Mural 1, in red, green and brown, shows a ruler in a bird mask, usually identified as an owl, and a green feathered costume, seated on a throne marked with the eyes of an Olmec earth monster, much like Altar 4 at La Venta. Mural 2, about 3 by 2 m, has been almost erased by weather but seems to show a figure dressed as a jaguar. INAH notes motifs tied to water, rain and fertility, with jaguars, deer and snakes.

The site was studied by archaeologist David Grove from the late 1960s. Over the following decades the paintings suffered graffiti and neglect, and in 2002 INAH began a multi-year conservation project, with workshops in Acatlán on caring for the murals. Ceramics found on the hill suggest people lived nearby. Acatlán itself is known for its embroidered clothing, ceramic toys and costume jewellery.