It occupies an immense area, only rivalled by that of Cuzco, and is constructed of stones, many of which weigh several tons, hewn into shape with stone hammers. Large portions of the mountain sides are built up with terraces, which were used for agricultural purposes and suggest an analogy with the “hanging gardens” of Babylon. No less than a hundred flights of steps connect the various parts of the city, which is divided into wards or “clan groups” by walled enclosures, enclosing houses and sometimes a central place of worship. The typical design of the houses is much like that of an Irish cabin—a ground story and a half story with gabled ends, each pierced by a small window. The wooden roofs have disappeared, but the stones, bored with a hole, to which the timbers were lashed, are still in place. In the burial caves bronze objects of fine workmanship have been discovered.
Among other noted remains of early buildings is the Teocalli or “House of the God” of Guatusco in Costa Rica. It shows a truncated pyramid of masonry, rising in steps, the top forming a platform on which the temple stands. A still more important example of this form of structure must have been the Teocalli of Tenochtitlan, the ancient name of Mexico City. Built about 1446, it was destroyed by the Spaniards and part of its site is now occupied by the Cathedral. According to accounts it comprised a truncated pyramid, measuring at the top, which was 86 feet from the ground, 325 by 250 feet. In the ascent it was necessary to pass five times round the structure by a series of terraces. On the platform were several ceremonial buildings, the terrible image of the god Huitzilopochtli, supposed to be the one that is now in the Museum of Mexico City, and the sacrificial stone. Upon the latter were sacrificed immense numbers of human victims; report saying, though no doubt with exaggeration, that at the dedication of the temple seventy thousand were slaughtered to appease the sanguinary appetite of this hideous idol.
The exteriors of the latest remains of Central America and Mexican primitive civilisation are embellished with ornament, the motives of which exhibit curved and rectangular meanders and interlacings, derived from the example of weaving and plaiting, as well as vegetable and animal forms. Often, as in the Casa de Monjas in Yucatan, the ornament is so profuse that it obscures the character of the structure, while the forms are fantastic and extravagant and in some instances horribly grotesque. Their intention apparently was to strike awe into the spectator.
Most of what we have been studying in this chapter comes under the head of archaeology rather than of art. Nevertheless, since it represents the gradual approach of civilisation toward the artistic conception, it is well worth attention.
BOOK II
PRE-CLASSIC PERIOD
CHAPTER I
EGYPTIAN CIVILISATION
The most ancient civilisation known to us is that of Egypt, and the knowledge of it is mainly derived from its architectural remains and the sculpture, painting, and inscriptions with which they are decorated. In addition, there are the records written upon papyri, the Biblical books of Exodus, and the history of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who lived about 250 B.C. By this time Egypt had been subdued by Alexander the Great and had passed under the rule of the Ptolemies. So Manetho wrote in Greek, but only fragments of his work have survived, through quotations made from it by Eusebius, Josephus, and other historians.
It is from all these materials that scholars have endeavoured to piece together some sort of connected history of the period covered by Manetho; the difficulty being increased by the fact that the Egyptian system of chronology reckoned by dynasties and computed the time by the years of the reigning sovereign, beginning anew with each succession. Furthermore, the inscriptions omit references to any interruptions that occurred in the sequence of the dynasties; recording only the periods of Egyptian supremacy and leaving out those in which the country suffered from the domination, short or long, of foreign conquerors.