The age of some of the colonial buildings in Oaxaca is difficult to comprehend.
While the project took decades to complete, brothers of the Dominican order began the construction of the Santo Domingo Church and its adjoining monastery in the 1570s. The monastery houses the Museum of Oaxacan Cultures, an extensive collection of pre-Hispanic artifacts, colonial religious sculpture and historical exhibits, while the walled grounds enclose the city’s Ethnobotanic Garden.