Died at her home, Casa Alvarado, in Coyoacán, Mexico

Zelia Nuttall died on April 12, 1933, at her home, the historic Casa Alvarado, in Coyoacán, a suburb of Mexico City where she had lived for much of her later career. She was 75 years old at the time of her death.

Casa Alvarado, a colonial-era house reputed to have ties to conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, had become both her residence and an informal center of scholarly and social life, where she hosted archaeologists, diplomats, and intellectuals from Mexico and abroad. Her death marked the end of a decades-long career that had helped establish Mesoamerican studies as a serious academic discipline and had opened doors for women in archaeology and anthropology at a time when such fields were almost exclusively male.

Nuttall's passing was noted in academic circles internationally, as she had built relationships with major museums and universities including the Peabody Museum at Harvard, the University of California, and numerous Mexican institutions. Her scholarly legacy, particularly her work on the Codex Nuttall and her research into pre-Columbian calendrical systems, continued to influence Mesoamerican studies long after her death. She is remembered as a pioneering figure who, despite lacking formal university credentials, achieved international recognition through rigorous, original research.