Western Façade of the Palace at Mitla.
Grecques of an Interior Room at Mitla.
Passing into the state of Vera Cruz, the attention of the observer is arrested by great numbers of mounds of all the varieties peculiar to the Mississippi Valley. Excavations have yielded pottery of burnt clay, idols, and flint and stone weapons, as well as implements of agriculture, but no trace of iron or copper is recorded. As the Nahuas are said by Duran and Sahagun to have landed on the Gulf coast not far north of this region, and to have traversed it in their wanderings southward, and since the tradition derives them from Florida, it is not improbable that here we see the continuation of the works of the lower Mississippi.[526]
Of several interesting specimens of ancient architecture in the state of Vera Cruz we have selected a few examples. At Puente Nacional the remarkable pyramid shown in the cut is situated. It was described by J. M. Esteva in the Museo Mexicano in 1843. The pyramid is six stories high, and the eastern side is faced by a grand stairway in the form of a cross. Mr. Bancroft has described it, employing the accompanying cut. At Centla, twenty-five or thirty miles north of Cordova, a series of remarkable fortifications were discovered in 1821, which have been most thoroughly described by Sr. Sartorius, who visited the locality in 1833, but whose account was not published until 1869.[527]
Pyramid near Puente Nacional.
The most notable fortification is situated at a narrow pass between two ravines, with perpendicular walls several hundred feet deep. The distance between the precipices at this point is only twenty-eight feet. The defensive works consist of several pyramidal structures built of stone and mortar. The largest of these has three terraces rising from the rear until they approach a perpendicular wall, fronting a narrow passage-way only three feet wide. This perpendicular wall is surmounted with parapets and loop-holes for defence. A pyramid on the opposite side of the passage-way, the platform of which is reached by a single flight of steps, is possessed of the same defensive features, with the addition of a ditch at its front eleven feet wide excavated in the solid rock to a depth of five and a half feet. The object of the fortress seems to have been the protection of an oval-shaped tract of fertile land containing about four hundred acres, lying between the barrancas. At the opposite end of the oval tract, the precipices approach so closely to each other as to leave a narrow passage of only three feet in width, which also is guarded by stone walls. Of numerous pyramids in the region, the one figured in the cut (from Bancroft’s work) is pronounced by Sr. Sartorius as typical of all of them.[528]
Type of Pyramids at Centla.