PYRAMID OF XOCHICALCO.
In this plaza, cultivated in later years as a cornfield, there are several mounds and heaps of stones not particularly described; and near the centre is a pyramid, or rather the lower story of one, with rectangular base, the sides of which, exactly or very nearly facing the cardinal points, measure sixty-five feet from east to west, and fifty-eight feet from north to south. The lower story, which in some parts is still standing to its full height, is divided into what may be termed plinth, frieze, and cornice, and is about sixteen feet high.[IX-38]
Pyramid of Xochicalco.
In the centre of one of the façades is an open space, something over twenty feet wide, bounded by solid balustrades, and probably occupied originally by a stairway, although it is said that no traces of steps have been found among the débris. The cut, from Nebel, shows the front of the pyramid on one side of the opening, being the eastern portion of the northern front, according to Nebel, who locates the stairway on the north, or the northern part of the western front, according to the Revista, which speaks of the opening as being on the west.
The pyramid, or at least its facing, is built of large blocks of granite or porphyry,[IX-39] a kind of stone not found within a distance of many leagues. The blocks are of different sizes, the largest being about eleven feet long and three feet high, and few being less than five feet in length. They are laid without mortar, and so nicely is the work done that the joints are scarcely perceptible. The cut shows one of the façades, probably the northern, from Castañeda's drawing, which corresponds almost exactly to that given by Alzate. So far as the details of the sculpture are concerned it is probably not very trustworthy. The preceding cut, from Nebel, is perhaps the only reliable drawing in this respect that has been published. The whole exterior surface seems to have been covered with sculptured figures in low relief, apparently executed after the stones were put in place, since one figure extends, with the greatest exactitude at the joints, over several blocks of stone.[IX-40]
