The site of Tututepec (Yucu Dzaa in Mixtec) has long been know from ethnohistoric sources as the capital of a powerful Late Postclassic (AD 1100-1522) imperial center in the lower Río Verde region on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca (Barlow 1949; Davies 1968; Smith 1973). Tututepec was one of several polities independent of the Aztec Empire and just prior to the Spanish Conquest was raiding towns as distant as Mitla, Achiutla, and Tehuantepec. The polity was ruled by a Mixtec dynasty, but controlled an empire extending over 25,000 km2 (Figure 1) that included speakers of at least five other languages: Amuzgo, Chatino, Zapotec, Chontal, and Nahuatl (Spores 1993). The documentary record of Tututepec extends back to the late eleventh century as recorded in the Mixtec codices (Joyce et al. 2004a; Smith 1973). Despite the recognized importance of Tututepec in the ethnohistoric record, until recently, little has been known of the archaeology of the site with its very location the subject of debate (Joyce et al. 2004a: 275-276; O’Mack 1990). This paper discusses the founding, extent, chronology, and aspects of the internal organization and external relations of Tututepec based on the results of a regional full-coverage survey, horizontal and test excavations, and a reanalysis of ethnohistoric documents (Joyce et al. 2004a, 2004b; Workinger 2002). We find a strong concordance between the archaeological and codical records that deal with Tututepec. The archaeological data indicate that the cacicazgo of Tututepec was founded early in the Late Postclassic by a highland Mixtec group. The foundation of Tututepec is further depicted in the heroic history of Lord 8 Deer ‘Jaguar Claw.’While Tututepec disappears from the codical record after the death of Lord 8 Deer, the archaeological data as well as Early Colonial documents show that the city continued to expand as its leaders came to control an empire that extended over much of southern Oaxaca.