Diggers

Coconut Planter Rufino Flores Velez was riding along a Mexican trail near the isolated village of Rio Grande in the southwest corner of Oaxaca state. When his horse kicked the corner of a stone sticking out of the dust, he hopped off, investigated, and gathered a gang of peasants to dig up the stone. It weighed about three tons, but at last the peasants managed to turn it over. The underside was covered with elaborate carvings that looked to non-archeological eyes like a man and woman embracing.

Hill of the Toad. Flores duly reported his find, but nothing was done until two novice archeologists, Robin Mills and Morgan Smith of Florida, heard about it in Oaxaca City. By airplane, jeep and saddle horse, Mills and Smith worked their way to roadless Rio Grande, where proud villagers showed them the stone. Part of the stone was covered with hieroglyphics, and five square miles of ground around it was full of exciting traces of an ancient civilization.

That was not all. Led by a guide provided by Rio Grande's Mayor Adalberto Cuevas, the young archeologists tramped through a jungle full of screaming parrots to a steep slope called Cerro del Sapo (Toad Hill). Overlooking the blue Pacific was a second slab with two Picasso-like figures carved on it. Locally called Los Reyes (The Kings), the stone is still revered as a miracle-working idol. The people of the vicinity make pilgrimages to it to pray for rain, and the carvings show traces of wax from their votive candles. Near it is another carved stone, badly eroded, whose local name is "The Queen."

Familiar Symbol. Mills and Smith photographed all the stones and reported to Professor Ignacio Bernal, one of Mexico's top archeologists, at Oaxaca City. Bernal recognized the style of the first stone. It was Zapotec, a relic of a high culture that centered around Oaxaca City and reached its peak during the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. Until now, said Bernal, there has been no evidence that the Zapotec culture ever extended as far as the Rio Grande region. The carved symbols on the stone are probably dates, and they may be a help toward deciphering the hieroglyphic writing of the Zapotecs.

The other stones, "The Kings" and "The Queen," were even more exciting archeologically. Bernal had never seen anything like them. Only the big square symbol on the two figures was familiar to him. It has been found elsewhere in Mexico, in ruins as old as the 5th century. Bernal believes that further digging on the Hill of the Toad may tell what people lived in the secluded Rio Grande region before the Zapotecs came.

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