Painting on Doorway—Palace No. 4.
Two mounds, or groups of mounds, stand west and south of the other ruins at 5 and 7 of the plan. No. 5 was photographed by Charnay, and is described as built of adobes, ascended by a stone stairway, and bearing now a modern chapel. According to Castañeda's drawing probably representing these pyramids, the principal structure had four stories, or terraces, and was about seventy-five feet high, measuring at the base about one hundred and twenty feet on its shortest sides from east to west. The stairway faces westward towards the court formed by the smaller mounds which have only two stories. Group No. 7 is represented by Castañeda as consisting like No. 5 of a large mound and three small ones, of two and one stories respectively, surrounding a court in whose centre is a block, or altar, which Dupaix thinks may conceal the entrance to a subterranean passage. Mühlenpfordt represents the arrangement of the mounds as on my plan, and thinks the smaller elevations may have borne originally buildings like the northern palaces. In one of these mounds, according to the last-mentioned author, a tomb was found. Dupaix also describes two tombs found under mounds, the locality of which is not specified. One of these tombs was in the form of a cross, with arms about three by nine feet, six feet high, covered with a roof of flat stones, and in its construction like the gallery under palace No. 2, except that the small brick-shaped blocks of which its sides are formed are not arranged in grecques, but laid so as to present a plain surface. The second tomb was of rectangular form, about four by eight feet in dimensions. In one of them some human remains, with fragments of fine blue stone were discovered.[VII-61]
FORTIFIED HILL.
At a distance of a league and a half eastward of the village, Dupaix described and Castañeda sketched a small plain square stone building, divided into four apartments, standing on the slope of a high rocky hill. On the plate there is also shown the entrance to a subterranean gallery not mentioned in Dupaix's text.[VII-62] Three fourths of a league westward from the village is a hill some six hundred feet in height, with precipitous sides naturally inaccessible save on one side, toward Mitla. The summit platform, probably leveled by artificial means, is enclosed by a wall of stone about six feet thick, eighteen feet high, and over a mile in circumference, forming many angles, as is shown in the annexed plan. On the eastern and accessible side, the wall is double, the inner wall being higher than the outer; and the entrances are not only not opposite each other, but penetrate the walls obliquely. Heaps of loose stones, c, c, c, were found at various points in the enclosure, doubtless for use as weapons in a hand-to-hand conflict. Outside of the walls, moreover, large rocks, some three feet in diameter, were carefully poised where they might be easily started down the sides against the advancing foe. Within the fortress, at several places, d, e, f, g, are slight remains of adobe buildings, probably erected for the accommodation of the aboriginal garrison. All we know of this fortress is derived from the work of Dupaix and Castañeda.[VII-63]
Plan of Fortress near Mitla.
Dupaix claims to have found the quarries which furnished material for the Mitla structures, in a hill three-fourths of a league eastward from the ruins, called by the Zapotecs Aguilosoé, by the Spaniards Mirador. The stone is described as of such a nature that large blocks may be easily split off by means of wedges and levers, and many such blocks were scattered about the place; the removal of the stone to the site of the palaces, here as in the case of many other American ruins, must have been the chief difficulty overcome by the builders. Stone wedges, together with axes and chisels of hard copper, are said to have been found at Mitla, but are not particularly described.[VII-64]