Cholula.
The sacred city of Cholula, in the environs at Puebla, is chiefly famous for its great pyramid. This structure is more or less irregular in shape but the base averages more than a thousand feet on the side and the total height, now somewhat reduced, was probably close to two hundred feet above the plain. Compared with the Pyramid of Cheops, it covers nearly twice as much ground and has a much greater volume, but lacks of course, in height. As already noted, the pyramids of the New World are simply foundations for temples and thus always have flat tops. The great mound of Cholula is a solid mass of adobe bricks of uniform size laid in adobe mortar. The pyramid was evidently faced with a thick layer of cement of which a few patches still remain. Two other large mounds exist at Cholula. One of these has been partially destroyed and now stands as a vertical mass of adobe bricks while the other is overgrown with brush and cactus.
Fig. 58. Pottery Plates from Cholula with Decorations in Several Colors. The pottery of Cholula ranks high in design and color.
[Plate XXXIV.]
(a) Partial View of the Great Pyramid at Cholula which rises from the Level Plain in Three Broad Terraces. A Spanish church has been built upon the top of this pyramid and a roadway leads up the badly eroded mound.
(b) A View at La Quemada. Cylindrical columns built up of slabs of stone supported the roofs of some of the structures. The use of columns was characteristic of late Toltecan times.
Unlike the other Toltecan cities Cholula was still inhabited and a place of religions importance when Cortez arrived in Mexico. But the figurines and pottery vessels that are found at this site belong for the most part to an epoch earlier than that of the Aztecs. Quetzalcoatl was the patron deity of Cholula and in the decorative art the serpent is finely conventionalized. A pottery shape frequently met with at Cholula is the flat plate bearing polychrome designs.