Every man who has looked upon these speechless but eloquent landmarks of these vanished races feels a burning desire to know more of them. To the curious and inquisitive, Mexico offers an endless field, and a few of these most noted ruins will be mentioned here.
The pyramid of Cholula, covering forty-four acres of ground, has already been mentioned. On Lake Texcoco stood the ancient city of Texcoco, and here have been found the foundations of three great pyramids, built of adobe and burnt brick. Sculptured blocks with finely chiseled bas reliefs have also been found. Three miles from Texcoco is a group of ruins called the Hill of Tezcocingo. The hill is very regular in outline and rises to the height of six hundred feet. The most noted part of this hill is the aqueduct which supplied it with water. The embankment which leads the aqueduct from the mountain is from sixty to two hundred feet high. The canals which brought the water are cemented with mortar mixed with pounded brick. Thirty miles from the capital are the ruins of Teotihuacan, “The City of the Gods.” Here are two immense pyramids dedicated to the Sun and Moon. The one to the Sun is seven hundred and sixty feet square and two hundred and sixteen feet high, with three terraces, the one to the Moon is one hundred and fifty feet high. Between them is a paved road one hundred and thirty feet wide. There are a number of smaller pyramids dedicated to the stars and the whole valley for six miles is strewn with relics.
On the Mexican Central Railroad, sixty miles from the city, is the town of Tula, or Tollan as it was called by the Toltecs. This was their ancient capital and is covered with ruins. There are two pyramids, probably dedicated to the Sun and Moon. One is one hundred and ninety six feet square and forty-six feet high, and the other one hundred and thirty one feet square and thirty-one feet high, and both rest upon raised foundations. The hillside for a mile has evidences of buildings made from adobe, brick and cut stone. At Queretaro, it was found that all the projecting points were made strong by ditches, walls and embankments. Bancroft in his “Native Races” says that at Canoas there is a fortified hill with forty-five defensive works, including a wall forty feet high, and a rectangular platform with an area of five thousand square feet.
At Quemada in the state of Zacatecas is said to be a hill whose every approach is guarded by walls of stone, with paved roads for many miles surrounding it. On top of the hill was a citadel, guarded by a wall twenty feet high and nine feet thick. To the south of Cholula are the ruins of Xochicalco, the “Hill of Flowers,” said to be the finest ruins in Mexico. The hill is a natural one rising nearly four hundred feet and having a circumference of nearly three miles. The hill was surrounded by a wide ditch and terraced to the top. Five of these terraces wind around the hill, and are paved with stone laid in mortar, and supported by perpendicular walls of stone. The top of the hill was leveled to an area of two hundred and eighty-five by three hundred and twenty-eight feet, upon which was a pyramid five stories high. The neighboring farmers have been using it as a stone-quarry, but there yet remain some fine specimens of chiseled bas-relief. These huge masses of porphyry were cut by people unacquainted with the use of iron, and as one sculptured block is eight feet long and three feet broad, and was carried nearly four hundred feet up the mound, we can appreciate the labor involved. There is no stone in this neighborhood, and yet the whole of this hill, three miles in circumference, is cased in stone. What a warlike neighborhood this must have been to require such fortification!
At Monte Alban is another group of a similar kind. At the summit of the hill is a platform half a mile wide, literally covered with sculptured stone. Mr. Bandelier considers this the most precious remains of aboriginal work on the continent. In the state of Oaxaca are the celebrated ruins of Mitla, built by a different people from the others. Besides the two mounds, Mr. Bandelier found the remains of thirty-nine buildings, most of which were built of stone. Huge blocks of stone were used and covered with a facing in which were traced peculiar geometrical designs. The columns are huge stone pillars without chapter or base. Mitla is an isolated spot with the pall of the tomb around it, except for the Zapotec Indians who live near. At Guingola in the same state is a fortified hill and a ruined settlement. In the state of Vera Cruz on the Panuco river Mr. Norman found twenty mounds and the ruins of a great city now covered by a forest. Cortez found this place inhabited by Totonac Indians whose traditions knew nothing of the ruins. The largest mound covers two acres, and was faced with stone 18 inches square. From the sculptures and inscriptions it was probably the work of the Mayas.
The Smithsonian Report of 1873, page 373, says: “There is hardly a foot of ground in the state of Vera Cruz, in which, by excavation, either a broken obsidian knife or a piece of pottery is not found.” The Mayas here probably made their last stand against the invading Nahuas, who also had to retreat before the advancing Totonacs. The ruins around Orizaba and Jalapa belong to this class. At Papantla is a pyramid ninety feet square and seven stories high, built solid, with a stairway leading to the top. Also at Tuscapam is another pyramid and the remains of many other buildings. When the country is fully explored, there will probably be as many more found as are already known.
One of the latest discoveries happened while I was in Mexico in 1896, and was by a Cuban, Mr. G. M. Moliner, who lives in the city of Mexico. He spent four years in Egypt, and for ten years has studied archæology in America. He has a sword which he found in Mexico and which he claims is coeval with the time of the Phoenicians. It is of copper and weighed eight pounds when discovered, and the scabbard four. The characters on one side he describes as Persian, and on the other as Phoenician. The inscription “Tai Abracadabra” was pointed out to a representative of the Mexican Herald, and the symbols of the gnostic beasts, the man, the eagle and the dragon, and the blade represents the bull’s tongue. He has also discovered a curio of copper, representing episodes in the history of the mound-builders as he claims, showing the city of the sun, figures of warriors, the conquering race armed with swords and oval shields, and bearing the insignia of the wolf’s head, while the conquered race is armed with battle axes and fire poles, and have the insignia of a bird’s claw. When he discovered this piece of copper, he also discovered what he calls the missing link between the past and present. It is a piece of jet black marble about ten inches square and polished as smooth as glass.
Mr. Moliner claims that this stone contains an epitome of the prehistoric race and the link that connects them to Asia. This missing link is the imprint of the head of Hermes, found in one corner of the lustrous black marble. This design is about two inches square, and though the marble is half an inch thick, the impression is on both sides. He claims that the design was painted and imbedded by discoloring acids. He has had the stone photographed and the study of the photograph is most interesting. The room must be darkened and only a little light must reach it. He explained that the ancient priests did this painting in the dark, through green obsidian glasses, and it must be viewed under similar conditions. Looking at the photograph in full light, it presented an enlarged representation of the alleged head of Hermes as found on the marble. When the room was darkened and the full glare of the light shone on it through green glasses, the photograph had the appearance of burnished silver. By shifting the photograph, caves and rocks would appear, and by another shifting appeared the outlines of a building with towers and turrets on the crest of a rock, showing a building of archaic architecture such as is seen in ancient biblical illustrations. Mr. Moliner declares this to be the ancient Chapultepec. By another shifting of the light, the head of Hermes appeared with five component parts, to wit: the sacred Maya stone, the sacrificial knife, the imperial diadem, and the mask and artificial snout found in Mexico by the conquerors, the last three being in use by the Aztecs from time immemorial. From the upper part of this head of Hermes rose a trinity of faces, more or less distinct, one looking straight ahead, and the other two right and left.
One of the oldest of religious trinities is that of Hermes, and Mr. Moliner claims that his discovery is similar to the symbol in the Louvre in Paris. The head of Hermes as found in the Louvre is on white marble, a slab eight feet high, and underneath it the inscription “Hermes from the Pelagic Times.”
The foregoing descriptions have been of ruins of the Nahuatl tribes; we will now turn to those of the Mayas where