MOUNDS OF TEOTIHUACAN.
Besides the mounds, or tlalteles that form the Path of the Dead, there are numerous others of the same form and material—being, so far as known, mere heaps of stone and earth—scattered over the plain, some of them in lines or groups, with an approach to regularity, and others with no apparent arrangement. They vary in height from four or five to twenty-five or thirty feet. Respecting these tlalteles I quote from Almaraz as follows: "In them many excavations have been made, causing most of the dilapidation which is noted; some of them executed for scientific purposes in search of archæological objects; others made by ignorant and rapacious persons, impelled by a hope of finding falsely reported treasures: Neither have there been wanting, and this is the cause of most of the destruction, persons of evil intentions who undertake to demolish the ruins in order to obtain the hewn blocks of porphyry which are used in the construction of their barbarous dwellings; and they do not even preserve the blocks, but break and destroy them; in this manner have perished relics truly precious. Almost under my eyes there were taken from one of the tlalteles eight hewn blocks four by three and a half feet; the outer faces were sculptured, representing a strange and grotesque figure, with the head of a serpent and of some other fierce animal, like a tiger or lion; they were curved on the outside, and all must have formed a circular monument seventeen feet in diameter; they were broken up without pity, although I was able to make a drawing of one of them. In the same tlaltel were other sculptured stones.... In the houses of San Juan de Teotihuacan are seen some of these sculptures built into the walls, and in the Ventilla, near the ruins, I have seen stones representing in my opinion a serpent.... Of all the objects of this class the most notable is a monolith found among the débris of a tlaltel, and of which I give a drawing [see next page.] It is a parallelopipedon ten feet and a half high, and five feet and a half wide and thick," weighing, according to the author's calculations, over fifteen tons. "I had an excavation made in one of the smallest, and found four walls meeting at right angles and forming a square; they are inclined, and within are found some steps which are parallel to it [the square]; in the upper part of these, begin four other walls also inclined, containing a little room:—I thought it was a tomb, although I have some doubts about its true object."[IX-84] The people of the vicinity said that in one of the mounds there had been found a stone box containing a skull, beads, and various curious relics of beryl, serpentine, heliotrope, and obsidian. They also claimed to have found quantities of gold-dust and gold vases.
Monolith from a Teotihuacan Mound.
Humboldt speaks of hundreds of these mounds arranged in streets running exactly east and west and north and south from the pyramids. Mayer's plan represents a square area partly enclosed by a line of tlalteles north-east of the House of the Moon. According to Latrobe, the mounds extend for miles towards Tezcuco; and Waddy Thompson is confident that they are the ruins of an ancient city nearly as large as Mexico. The Citadel he calls the public square of twenty acres with a stone building in the centre, and he also finds traces of several other smaller squares. The streets are marked by large piles of rock resembling—except in size—potato-hills, formed by falling buildings. In the opinion of this author it is simply absurd to suppose these heaps to have been formed as separate mounds. Thompson also found a number of circular niches two feet in diameter on the bank of a ravine west of the other remains.[IX-85]
The Fainting-Stone at Teotihuacan.
Mayer found, near i of the plan—as nearly as can be determined by his plan, which differs considerably in detail from the one I have given—a globular mass of granite nineteen feet eight inches in circumference; also, near m, the stone block shown in the cut. It is ten feet and a half long, five feet wide, lies exactly east and west, and is found in the centre of a group of small mounds. The cut shows the sculpture on the face turned toward the south, that on the top and north being very indistinct. At b of the cut is a hollow described as three inches deep at the sides, and six at top and bottom. Notwithstanding Col. Mayer's opinion to the contrary, it is most natural to regard this monument as an overturned pillar. The natives believe that whoever sits or reclines on this stone will immediately faint.[IX-86]