Sculptured Granite Block—Mapilca.
Mr Nebel also visited another locality where remains were discovered, south-eastward from Papantla towards the Tecolutla river, near the rancho of Mapilca. Here in a thick forest were several pyramids in a very advanced stage of dilapidation and not described. There were also seen immense blocks of granite scattered in the forest. The one sketched by Nebel and shown in the cut is twenty-one feet long, and covered with ornamental sculpture in low relief: it rested on a kind of pavement of irregular narrow stones. Another explorer, who saw the ruins in 1828, found the remains of twenty houses, one of them seventy paces long, with walls still standing to the height of ten feet. Most of them were only six feet high, and the small amount of débris indicated that only part of the original height was of stone.[VIII-44]
Pyramid of Tusapan.
RUINS OF TUSAPAN.
On a low hill some forty miles west of Papantla, at the foot of the cordillera, enveloped in an almost impenetrable forest, is another group of ruins, called Tusapan, known only from the drawings and slight description of Nebel. The only structure which remains standing is shown in the cut. It consists of a pyramid thirty feet square at the base, and bearing a building in a tolerable state of preservation. Except the doorposts, lintels, and cornices, the whole structure is said to be built of irregular fragments of limestone; but if this be true, it is evident from the drawing that the whole was covered with a smooth coat of plaster. The building on the summit contains a single apartment twelve feet square, with a door at the head of the stairway. The apartment contains a block, or pedestal, which may have served for an altar, or to support an idol; and it has a pointed ceiling similar in form to the exterior. It is unfortunate that we have no further details respecting this ceiling, since it would be interesting to know if it was formed by overlapping stones as in the Maya ruins, particularly as this is one of the very few remaining specimens of the aboriginal arch in Nahua territory. From the large number of stone blocks and other débris found in the vicinity it is supposed that the pyramid represented in the cut was not the grandest at Tusapan. Several filled-up wells, and numerous fragments of stone images of human and animal forms much mutilated were also noticed.
Fountain in the Living Rock—Tusapan.