Architecture.
The idea of a civic center is admirably illustrated in Mayan cities, particularly those of the first brilliant period. The principal structures are built around courts or plazas and there is usually an artificial acropolis which is a great terraced mound serving as a common base or platform from which the individual pyramidal bases of several temples rise. At some sites this acropolis is a natural hill which has been trimmed down or added to, but at other sites it is entirely artificial. At Copan there is an especially fine example of artificial platform mound rising from one end of the Great Plaza and affording space for several temples, as well as for sunken courts with stepped sides that may have been theatres. The river washing against one side of this great mound has removed perhaps a third of it and made a vertical section that shows the method of construction. It is apparent that the mound was enlarged and old walls and floors buried.
Fig. 21. Cross-section of Typical Mayan Temple in Northern Yucatan: a, upper cornice; b, medial cornice; c, upper zone; d, lower zone; e, wooden lintels; f, exterior doorway; g, interior doorway; h, offset at spring of vault; i, cap stone.
Mayan buildings are of two principal kinds. One is a temple pure and simple and the other has been called a palace. The temple is a rectangular structure crowning a rather high pyramid that rises in several steps or terraces. As a rule the temple has a single front with one or more doorways and is approached by a broad stairway. The pyramid is ordinarily a solid mass of rubble and earth faced with cement or cut stone and rarely contains compartments. Some temples have but a single chamber while others have two or more chambers, the central or innermost one being specially developed into a sanctuary. The so-called palaces are clusters of rooms on low and often irregular platforms. These palaces may have been habitations of the priests and nobility. The common people doubtless lived in palm-thatched huts similar to those used today in the same region.
The typical Mayan construction is a faced concrete. The limestone, which abounds in nearly all parts of the Mayan Area, was burned into lime. This was then slaked to make mortar and applied to a mass of broken limestone. The facing stones were smoothed on the outside and left rough hewn and pointed on the inside. It is likely that these facing stones were held in place between forms and the lime, mortar, and rubble filled in between. The resulting wall was essentially monolithic. The rooms of Mayan buildings are characteristically vaulted but the roof is not a true arch with a keystone. The vault, like the walls, is a solid mass of concrete that grips the cut stone veneer and that must have been held in place by a false work form while it was hardening. The so-called corbelled arch of overstepping stones was doubtless known to the Mayan builders but was little used. Taking the single rectangular room as the unit of construction the width was limited to the span of the vault, which seldom exceeded twelve feet, while the length was indeterminate.
[Plate XVI.]
A Temple at Hochob showing Elaborate Façade Decorations in Stucco. Probably ninth century. The design over the door represents a grotesque front view face of which the eyes can still be plainly made out. At either side of the door the design represents a serpent head in profile. Photograph by Maler.
The first variation from the temple with one rectangular room was the two-roomed structure with one chamber directly behind the other. In this case there were two vaulted compartments separated from each other by a common supporting wall pierced by one or more doorways. The inner room was naturally more dimly lighted than the other one and as a result was modified into a sanctuary, or holy of holies, enhanced by sculptures and paintings, while the outer room developed gradually into a portico. The outer wall was cut by doorways till only pier-like sections remained, and finally these piers were replaced by square or round columns. The development of the Mayan temple may be traced through a thousand years of change and adjustment.
Much attention was paid by Mayan builders to the question of stability which was accomplished directly by keeping the center of gravity of the principal masses within the supporting walls rather than by the use of binding stones. The cross-section of a two-roomed temple of late date will illustrate how this was done. There are three principal masses, one over the front wall, one over the medial partition, and one over the back wall. The roof where these sections join is of no great thickness. The central mass is symmetrical and, if the mortar has the proper cohesiveness, very stable. For the front and back masses the projection of the upper or frieze zone tends to counterbalance the overhang of half the vault. In the earlier temples the upper zone of the façade often slopes backward so that the balance is not so perfect.
[Plate XVII.]
A Sealed Portal Vault in the House of the Governor at Uxmal, a Building of the Second Empire, probably Thirteenth Century. The veneer character of the cut stone comes out clearly. Peabody Museum photograph.
So far we have given brief space to the question of elevations. Taken vertically there are three parts to the Mayan building: first, the substructure or pyramidal base; second, the structure proper; third, the superstructure. In the case of temples the structure proper is one story in height. Two and three stories are rather common in palaces, but the upper stories are in most cases built directly over a solid core and not over the rooms of the lower story. The upper stories, therefore, recede, so that the building presents a terraced or pyramidal profile. One building at Tikal is five stories in height, in three receding planes, the three uppermost stories being one above the other. In a tower at Palenque we have an example of four stories but this is unusual.
On top of the building proper, especially if it is a temple, we frequently find a superstructure. This is a sort of crest, or roof wall, usually pierced by windows. When this wall rises from the center line of the roof it is called a roof comb or roof crest, and when it rises from the front wall it is called a flying façade. The highest temples in the Mayan Area are those of Tikal that attain a total height of about 175 feet, counting pyramid and superstructure.