PLAN OF THE HILL AT TULA (ANCIENT PALPAN).
No. 1, Excavations of Toltec House. No. 2, Tomb Excavated. No. 3, Palace Excavations. Nos. 4 and 5, Pyramids of Sun and Moon. No. 6, Esplanades and Mounds, Sites of Ancient Dwellings. No. 7, Tlachtli, Tennis-Court. No. 8, Tula River.
I picked out of the rubbish many curious things: huge baked bricks, from one foot to nine inches by two and two and a half in thickness; filters, straight and curved water-pipes, vases and fragments of vases, enamelled terra-cotta cups, bringing to mind those at Tenenepanco; seals, one of which (an eagle’s head) I had engraved for my personal use; bits which were curiously like old Japanese china; moulds, one having a head with a huge plait and hair smoothed on both sides of her face, like an old maid; besides innumerable arrow-heads and knives of obsidian strewing the ground. In fact, a whole civilisation.
This house, the first it was our fortune to discover, was built on a somewhat modified natural elevation; the various apartments
GROUND PLAN OF TOLTEC PALACE UNEARTHED AT TULA (LEMAIRE).
No. 1, Principal Court. No. 2, Façade. No. 3, Entrance. No. 4, Reception Apartment. No. 5, Ruined Wall. No. 6, Enclosures for Animals. No. 7, Right Wing of the Palace. No. 8, Left Wing. follow the direction of the ground and are ranged on different levels, numbering from zero elevation for the lowest to 8 ft. for the highest. The walls are perpendicular, the roofs flat; and a thick coating of cement, the same everywhere, was used, whether for roofs, ceilings, floors, pavements, or roads.
On examining the monuments at Tula, we are filled with admiration for the marvellous building capacity of the people who erected them; for, unlike most primitive nations, they used every material at once. They coated their inner walls with mud and mortar, faced their outer walls with baked bricks and cut stone, had wooden roofs, and brick and stone staircases. They were acquainted with pilasters (we found them in their houses), with caryatides, with square and round columns; indeed, they seem to have been familiar with every architectural device. That they were painters and decorators we have ample indications in the house we unearthed, where the walls are covered with rosettes, palms, red, white, and gray geometrical figures on a black ground.
My next soundings were towards the centre of the hill, at a mound marked No. 2, which I took at first for a tomb; but finding nothing, I directed my men south-east, at the extremity of the hill, No. 3. Here we attacked a pyramid of considerable size, thickly covered with vegetation, having a hole and a thick plaster coating, which, to my extreme delight, revealed an old palace, extending over an area of nearly 62 ft. on one side, with an inner courtyard, a garden, and numerous apartments on different levels, ranged from the ground-floor to 8 ft. high, exactly like the first house; the whole covering a surface of 2,500 square yards. We will give a description of it, together with the probable use of the various apartments. No. 1 (see plan) is the inner courtyard, which we take as our level; No. 3 to the right, paved with large pebbles, is the main entrance. Facing this to the left, No. 7 is a small room about 4 ft. high, which was entered by a flight of seven low steps; it is a Belvedere, from which a view of the whole valley could be obtained. Next comes No. 4, perhaps a reception-room, 32 ft. long, having two openings towards the court. On the other side, to the north, is a smaller, narrower Belvedere, from which an ante-room, on a slightly lower level, furnished with benches, was reached. The main body of the palace consists of ten apartments of different size, with stuccoed walls and floors. The façade, No. 2, 8 ft. high, opens on the courtyard; whilst two winding stone staircases to the right, and an equal number to the left, led to the apartments on the first storey. Brick steps, covered with a deep layer of cement, connected the various chambers. The cells on both sides of the main apartments may have been the servants’ quarters. No. 6, are a kind of yards, without any trace of roof, and if we are to judge from Aztec dwellings, they were probably enclosures for domestic and wild animals. The Americans, says Clavigero,[51] had no flocks; nevertheless their table was well supplied by innumerable animals to be found about their dwellings, and unknown to Europe; whilst the poor people had an edible dog, techichi, the breed of which was lost by the abuse the Spaniards made of it in the early times of the Conquest. Royal palaces had extensive spaces reserved for turkeys, ducks, and every species of volatile, a menagerie for wild animals, chambers for reptiles and birds of prey, and tanks for fish; so that the purpose we ascribe to these enclosures becomes highly probable. Here and there closed-up passages, walls rebuilt with materials other than those employed in the older construction, seem to indicate that the palace was occupied at two different periods; this would agree with Veytia[52] when he says, “that on the Chichemecs invading the country under the command of Xolotl, they found Tula (cir. 1117) deserted, and grass growing in the streets; but that the King was so pleased with the site that he ordered the monuments to be repaired and the town inhabited. He followed the same policy at Teotihuacan and other places, ordering his people to preserve old names, and only authorising them to give new appellations to those they should build themselves.”[53]
VIEW OF RUINED TOLTEC PALACE.
The building we unearthed is entire, its outer wall intact; presenting a valuable specimen of the houses dating long before the Conquest. Here we found the same kind of objects as in our first excavations: plates, dishes, three-footed cups having striated bottoms and used for grinding Chili pepper; fragments of pottery, enamels, terra-cotta whorls of different size covered with sunk designs having a hole in the centre. These whorls are called “malacates” by the natives, and used by Indian women to this day. A round piece of wood or spindle-stick is introduced in the hole of the whorl, projecting about five inches from the lower plane, and about nine inches from the upper. The spinner, who is sitting, rests the point of her spindle on a varnished plate, and impels it round with her thumb and forefinger, twisting the cotton or wool attached thereto.[54] In Mexico, rich ladies used a golden plate.[55]