The stones facing the walls and rooms are smooth and square, and the mass of the masonry consists of rough, irregular fragments of stone and mortar. This cross-section makes this meaning plain. We can but notice what an immense amount of useless labor was bestowed on the walls and ceilings of this building. We gather more the idea of galleries excavated in a rocky mass, than of rooms inclosed by walls. The rooms are very plain; no attempt at decoration was observed. In one or two instances the remains of a fine coat of plastering was noticed. “The floors were of cement, in some places hard, but by long exposure broken, and now crumbling under foot.” The arches supporting the roof are of the same style as those at Palenque—that is, triangular,—though, in this case, the ends of the projecting stones were beveled off so as to form a smooth surface. At Palenque, we remember, the inequalities were filled with cement. Across the arches were still to be observed beams of wood, the ends buried in the wall at both sides. The supposition is that they served to support the arches while building, and afterwards for the suspension of hammocks.46
There are no openings for light and ventilation, consequently some of the rear rooms are both damp and dark. The lintels over each doorway were of wood. This was the common and ordinary material employed for lintels in Yucatan, though in one or two instances stone was used. They used for this purpose beams of zapote, a wood noted for its strength and durability. Some inner lintels still remain in place. The one over the central doorway of the outer wall was elaborately carved, the others were plain.
The outside of the building is also of interest to us. By a careful examination, we notice a cornice just above the doorway. The wall below the cornice presents a smooth surface of limestone, no traces of plaster or paint appearing; above the cornice the façade is one solid mass of rich, complicated, and elaborately sculptured ornaments. This is not stucco work, as at Palenque, but the ornaments are carved on stone. Mr Stephens tells us, “Every ornament or combination is made up of separate stones, each of which had carved on it part of the subject, and was then set in its place in the wall. Each stone, by itself, is an unmeaning fractional portion, but placed by the side of others, makes, part of a whole which, without it, would be incomplete.”
It is not possible to give a verbal description of all of the ornaments; we can notice but few. Over each doorway was represented a person apparently seated on a sort of throne, having a lofty head-dress, with enormous plumes of feathers falling symmetrically on each side. Though the figures varied in each case, in general characteristics they were the same as the one here represented, which was the figure over the central doorway of the building.
