South Platform

17.0431°N, 96.7675°W.

The South Platform anchors the southern end of Monte Albán's Main Plaza in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, the artificially flattened mountaintop capital of the Zapotec civilization. The platform was built up over successive phases between approximately 200 BCE and 700 CE, rising 40 metres above the plaza floor in massive tiers of cut volcanic stone. Stelae 1 through 8 — carved with bound captives, calendrical dates, and conquest narratives — were originally set into its corners during the platform's expansion phases under the Zapotec rulers. Excavations by Alfonso Caso between 1931 and 1958 documented the construction sequence and the famous jade-mask tomb finds at the adjacent acropolis. The Main Plaza itself measures roughly 200 by 300 metres and was created by levelling the natural mountaintop.

The South Platform is a man-made mountain stacked on top of a man-made mountain, levelled by people who were willing to remove the entire summit of an actual peak before building anything on it.