East of Oaxaca City, the archaeological zone of Yagul occupies a steep hill in the Tlacolula Valley. The site is not a single pyramid standing alone in the countryside: it is a spread of terraces, courtyards, palaces, tombs and a ball court fitted to the slope. From the upper ground, the visitor can read the relationship between architecture and terrain, with buildings arranged across different levels rather than imposed on a flat ceremonial plaza.
Yagul became an important regional centre as Monte Albán declined, and the largest visible structures belong to the later history of the Valley of Oaxaca. INAH gives the site a broad occupation chronology from 1500 BCE to 1521 CE and identifies the Early Postclassic, around 900–1200, as a principal period. Other INAH descriptions place the Six-Courtyard Palace in the Late Postclassic, 1200–1521. These ranges describe different phases, not a contradiction that should be collapsed into one founding date.