in search of our commonality

What is it about history and archaeology and art and architecture and food that so fascinates us?

What is it that drives us to journey the world to discover its mysteries?

There is usually a day during any trip when visitors hit their stride. At least, that is true for me. And today was that day.

Even though it was a mixed activity day, it occurred to me that everything I experienced had a common thread. At our foundation, people share basic instincts. Sure, culture puts an incredible burden on that commonality. But all of our ancestors ventured out of Africa in search of the same basic needs.

I suspect that is one reason the people of Mesoamerica do not seem to be that different from us. And why Asian and African art is so accessible to us.

The day started with a trip to La Quemeda, an archaeological site 30 miles south of Zacatecas. It is not a siet well-known to many pepole. But it should be.

No one is quite certain about the people who built and lived in this hill-top town. Like Teotihuacán, it is something of a cipher.

Yesterday we talked about Zacatecas' position as the transition point to northern Mexico.  La Quemada may have served a similar purpose in Mesoamerica. But no one is certain why it was built so far north from the other cultures.

Bit, like Teotihuacán, just because we know little of the people who lived there, it does not diminish the importance of either city. We know a number of things from what archaeologists have discovered in La Quemada.

The first buildings were built around 300 AD and the site was occupied until 1200 AD, a period that fully or partially overlapped the other great Mesoamerican cultures. The presence of shells and turquoise indicate the city was a major trading center. In its later stage, 258 roads led to other sites.

The city is built on five levels. Later levels contain continually more-sophisticated structures. At its height, they built a temple (the Hall of Columns).

The presence of columns is an unusual architectural element for that period. The building was obviously the star attraction with a wooden ceiling structure supported by the columns.

The buildings are made of split stone. The stones were mortared into place and then covered with stucco. Some of the original stucco can still be found on the walls.

There was a warrior class garrisoned in the city. The hill on which the city is based provides a natural fortress, similar to the Acropolis. But, at some point, the people felt the need to build a defensive wall. We do not know if that was to protect against invaders or to protect the elite from the lower classes or both.

But, it was apparent trouble was brewing.

The people who lived there did not call the city La Quemada. The Spanish named the place. It means 'the burned place." When the Spanish arrived, three hundred years after the city was abandoned, they found evidence of fire on the city walls. It can still be seen.

The charred walls give a hint at why the city was abandoned. War. Internal strife. Famine.

The priests and city leaders, like any other Mesoamerican city had one function -- to appease the gods to ensure rains arrived timely for the crops. That is why almost every Mesoamerican site has a structure to track the sun and moon to predict the seasons.

If drought led to famine, the priests and leaders were not doing their job -- and they were often overthrown. That is one of those human universals. It happened in China. It happened in Mexico.

I think we all felt a bit frustrated that we would never know much about the people who inhabited the city. After all, that is one of the reasons for studying other cultures.,

But I did spend the afternoon in a museum where another human universal is celebrated -- art.

Pedro Coronel was an accomplished Mexican painter and sculptor who found his medium in abstract art. And he was quite successful financially.

At his death, he had collected a grandmother's closet of some of the finest pieces of art from around the world. He donated it to the people of Mexico, and it is now housed in the Museo Pedro Coronel in Zacatecas.

The museum is something of a hodgepodge -- because it represents Coronel's tastes over his lifetime. It is easy to imagine that the British Museum started like this.

The oddest piece is an Egyptian sarcophagus. I say "odd" only because I had not yet caught the theme of the museum before I saw the sarcophagus. I am a sucker for mummies. So, I was not put off by it.

The collections from around the world would have delighted Addison Mizner.

Pieces from India and China.

From Africa.

From ancient Rome.

Some overused pieces from Greece.

But there are also paintings from some of the giants of abstract and surrealistic art. Including Picasso.

Chagall.

Walls of pieces by Miró.

And Ernst, Braque, Kandinsky, Dali, and other surrealist and abstract expressionist painters.

It would be easy to downplay the museum as nothing more than a talented artist wanting to mix his works with The Greats as an ego exercise.

But his paintings are quite good.

As are his sculptures.

But I realized egoism was not Coronel's motivation when I walked through an exhibition hall tucked away in one corner of the museum. The exhibit uses human Jungian archetypes and compares various pieces of Mexican art with other pieces around the word. Such as these Mexican and African masks.

After all, Picasso was greatly influenced by African masks and art in developing some of his own pieces. Just like the mysterious people who built La Quemada, we are all in this struggle of life together.

One of those basic needs is food. Before I moved to Mexico, I saw a photograph in a tour guide of a hotel that had built its accommodations around a former bull ring. The concept fascinated me. I once wanted to re-purpose a grain silo as a house.

It turns out that hotel is in Zacatecas, and that is where we decided to have dinner tonight.

The Playa de Toros San Pedro entertained the people of Zacatecas every Sunday (except, I assume, during the area's many wars) from 1866 until 1975. When it was de-activated, the Quinta Real hotel built a round hotel around its perimeter.

The dining room fittingly looks out over the bull ring where beef on the hoof once died. It is now served with a certain flair in the restaurant.

Because I had stuffed myself with a full plate of cabrito (kid) at lunch, I knew I did not want much to eat. My rule in restaurants is that I look for something I have not eaten before or that I cannot cook at home with a good deal of difficulty.

I then saw it. A small portion. Something exotic. Tortellini stuffed with huitlacoche (corn fungus) and served with callo de hacha (scallops). It sounded creative.

Unfortunately, the concept did not survive its execution. The consistency of the sushi-style scallops and the crisp tortellini fought, rather than complemented, one another.

I am glad I tried it. And because I try to never eat the same dish twice, I will not need to worry about ordering it again. But the view and service were superb.

Best of all, the experience topped off a successful day of realizing that people, as a group, are searching for the same things in life. That is not a cry for another round of kumbaya. It is simply a fact.

And it is one of those factors that will find us on the road in the morning to Real de Catorce.