Half a league below the town of Huatusco, Dupaix discovered a remarkable pyramid crowning a hill on a slope of which was also a group of ruins called the Pueblo Viejo. This structure known as El Castillo, measures sixty-six feet in height, though there is some uncertainty as to the size of the base.[529] Dupaix’s text states it to be two hundred and twenty-one feet square, but Mr. Bancroft calls attention to the fact that Castañeda’s drawing makes it about seventy-five feet square. The pyramid in three terraces measures thirty-seven feet high. The superstructure is in three stories, with a single doorway in the lowest. This seems to have been the only opening through the walls of the castle, which were eight feet thick; we presume, however, only at their base, as their exterior shows a sloping rather than a perpendicular surface. The lowest story forms a single apartment with three pillars in the centre supporting the beams of the floor above. Portions of the beams were visible when Dupaix visited the locality. The walls of the castle are of rubble made of stone and mortar, as in the Yucatan structures, having stone facings. The exterior of the castle proper was coated with polished plaster and ornamented with panels containing regular rows of round stones embedded in the coating. Some unimportant fragments of sculpture in stone and terra-cotta were found in the ruin. El Castillo is of special interest because of the well-preserved condition of its superstructure. About one hundred and fifty or sixty miles north-west of the city of Vera Cruz, the German artist Nebel found a group of ruins known as those of Tusapan, buried in a dense forest at the foot of the Cordillera. The only structure which remains standing closely resembles the pyramid above described, except that the walls of the pyramid are not terraced, and the tower surmounting the pyramid is built with a single story. The only opening in the tower is the doorway at the head of the stairway. The interior contains a single apartment twelve feet square. The ceiling is said to have been arched or pointed, but Herr Nebel has failed to furnish definite information as to whether the arch was of overlapping stones or not, an oversight of an unpardonable character, since it would be of greatest interest to know whether the Maya arch existed so far north. The pyramid is described as thirty feet square, and built of irregular blocks of limestone, which was probably covered with a coat of the plastering generally employed and so polished in its appearance.[530] One remaining structure in the State of Vera Cruz merits special attention, namely, the pyramid of Papantla. This pyramid, known as El Tajin, “the thunderbolt,” is situated in a dense forest near the modern town of Papantla, which lies about forty miles east of Tusapan. There is a wide divergence of expression as to the dimensions of the pyramid. Herr Nebel, however, makes the base something over ninety feet square and the height fifty-four feet. The pyramid is seven stories high and apparently solid, except the topmost story which contained interior departments. This crowning structure is now sadly dilapidated. Dupaix’s statement, copied by Humboldt, that the material of the pyramid is porphyry, cut in immense blocks, appears to be an error, since later exploration has revealed the fact that the pyramid was constructed of regularly cut blocks of sandstone laid in mortar, and coated with a hard, smooth cement, three inches thick. A stairway on the eastern front is divided as well as being guarded by solid stone balustrades.[531]
For Nahua monuments of the purest type we naturally turn to Anahuac the home of Toltec and Aztec art during its most advanced period of development. But alas! the hand of the conqueror and the zeal of the fanatic have robbed irretrievably the antiquarian and the student of the history of architecture and art, of the best and noblest remains of that strangely interesting civilization. Our attention is naturally directed to the architecture of that ancient religious centre—Cholula—the origin of which, together with that of its great pyramid, we have described in a previous chapter. We have already seen that the prime object for erecting the immense pile, according to Duran, was the worship of the sun, and not to afford a refuge from a deluge as has been generally supposed. The pyramid of Cholula is situated in the eastern portion of a village to which it has given its name, and is reached by a ride of about ten miles westward from the city of Puebla de los Angelos. The magnificent temple upon its summit dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, fell a prey to the destroying vengeance of Cortez, who no doubt was enraged at the stubborn resistance with which he was met by the devoted natives, in a hard-fought battle at the foot and upon the slopes of the pyramid. Of the large number of descriptions, either made from personal observation or written from a comparison of accounts, none surpass that of Humboldt, which was the result of a careful survey, performed in 1803. Humboldt’s drawing, however, was a restoration and not a picture of the condition of the shrub-grown hill as he saw it.[532] The pyramid, according to Humboldt, measures at the base six hundred and thirty-nine metres or a trifle more than fourteen hundred and twenty-eight feet square; in other words, about forty-four acres. The base is shown by Humboldt to be more than twice as large as that of Cheops. Humboldt and Dupaix give its height as fifty-four metres or one hundred and seventy-seven feet; Mayer says it is two hundred and four feet; Tylor, two hundred and five feet, and Heller[533] states that its summit platform covers an area of 13,285 square feet. Its height is somewhat greater than that of the pyramid of Mycerinus. Humboldt compares it to a mass of brick, covering a square four times as large as the Place Vendôme and twice the height of the Louvre. He considers it of the same type as the temple of Jupiter Bélus—the pyramids of Meïdoùn Dahchoùr, and the group of Sakharah in Egypt. This great monument was constructed in four equal terraces of small sun-dried bricks, laid in a mortar which has been pronounced by some a mixture of clay with fragments of stones and pottery, by others a cement intermixed with small pieces of porphyry and limestone. Herr Heller discovered that the entire structure had been covered with a coating of cement composed of lime, sand and mortar.[534] The present appearance of the pyramid is sufficient to induce the opinion that it was originally a natural eminence faced up with adobes in terraces, in accordance with the architectural idea, but its position in the centre of a plain, together with the revelations as to its contents, disclosed by the construction of the Pueblo road through one corner of its base, furnish partial if not conclusive proof that it was entirely of artificial construction. The excavation revealed the perfect regularity with which the bricks were laid in the interior, and brought to light a tomb containing two skeletons, two basalt figures, a collection of pottery and other articles not described. Humboldt has fully described this chamber, which was constructed with stone walls supported by cypress timbers. No doorway could be found opening into the tomb.
At Xochicalco, the “hill” or “castle of flowers,” situated seventy-five miles south-west from the city of Mexico and distant from Cuernavaca fifteen miles in nearly the same direction, are found the most remarkable specimens of ancient Mexican architecture north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The most important descriptions of the ruins are by Alzate y Ramirez,[535] Humboldt,[536] Dupaix and Castañeda,[537] Nebel,[538] and one prepared by the authority of the Mexican government.[539]
These ruins are both beneath and upon a natural hill of oval form measuring about two miles in circumference and from three hundred to four hundred feet in height, authorities differing considerably on this point. At the foot of the hill on its northern side, are the entrances of two tunnels, one of which extends to a point eighty-two feet from the edge of the hill, where it terminates abruptly. The second tunnel penetrates the solid limestone of the hill in the form of a square gallery nine and a half feet high and broad, extending inward for several hundred feet and branching into several auxiliary galleries, which terminate in some instances abruptly. The floors are paved with small blocks of stone, to a thickness of a foot and a half; masonry in some places support the sides, and all the interior surface shows traces of red paint upon the polished cement coating with which it was finished. The principal gallery, after turning a right angle toward the left and extending some hundred feet in a straight line, enlarges into a subterranean chamber eighty feet long by about sixty feet in width. Two circular columns of living rock were left in making the excavation as supports for the roof. The most singular feature connected with the chamber is the perfectly circular excavation found at its south-east angle, or that corner of the room diagonally opposite to the corner at which the passage-way enters it. This circular apartment is only about six feet in diameter, and while it is no deeper than the adjoining chamber, rises above its ceiling in a dome-shaped roof, lined with stones hewn in curved blocks. The curve of this dome-like ceiling corresponds with that of a well-proportioned Gothic arch. At the apex of the dome, a round hole ten inches in diameter extends vertically upwards; some suppose to the pyramid above, but a moment’s calculation suffices to show that in view of the considerable diameter of the hill and the comparatively short distance from the chamber to its exterior slope, such is impossible. The exterior of the hill presents a most wonderful display of masonry. Its entire circuit is compassed with five terraces of well-laid stone and mortar, faced with perpendicular walls. Each terrace of masonry is about seventy feet in height, and is constructed in an irregular line, forming sharp angles, like the bastions of a fortress; each wall supporting the terraces rises above the level of their respective platforms in parapets, evidently for defence. The pavements of the platforms are of stone and inclined slightly toward the south-west, with a view to draining off the rainfall. Dupaix is the only explorer who mentions the means of ascent, which he describes as a roadway eight feet wide, leading to the summit. The summit platform measures 285 by 328 feet, and is surrounded by a wall which is perpendicular on the inside, and on the outside conforms to the slope of the terrace wall of which it is an extension. This parapet, built of stones without mortar, rises five and a half feet above the plaza, and is two feet and nine inches thick, we presume at its top, since the outer slope of the terrace would make a difference between the top and bottom. Near the centre of the plaza stands the base of a pyramid which presents some remarkable architectural contrasts from anything we have thus far described. Its sides face the cardinal points, and measure sixty-five feet from east to west, and fifty-eight feet from north to south. One of the façades, the northern, according to Nebel, and the western, according to the Mexican Government Survey in the Revista, is cut in two in the centre by an opening twenty feet wide, where it is supposed a stairway formerly led to the superstructure. The cut from Nebel, and reproduced by Mr. Bancroft, shows the façade to the left of the opening, as the observer faces the pyramid.
Pyramid at Xochicalco.
The great granite or porphyritic stones which constitute the facing of the pyramid, some of them eleven feet in length and three feet in height, must have been brought to the summit of the hill at the expense of great labor, especially since they must have been transported from a considerable distance, no such material being found within a circuit of many leagues. The stones were laid without mortar, and so nicely that it is said the joints are scarcely perceptible. Fragments of a ruined superstructure surmount the pyramid. The foundation walls of the second story were two feet and three inches from the edge of the cornice below it, except on the west where the space was four and a half feet wide. In 1755, so say the inhabitants of the vicinity, the structure was yet complete, having five receding stories like the first, and probably reaching a height of sixty-five feet. On its crowning summit, on the eastern side, stood a large throne-like block of stone, ornamented with elaborate sculptures. The second story foundations indicate the position of three doorways at the head of the grand stairway, and the account in the Revista describes an apartment twenty-two feet square observable at the summit of the first story, but now filled with fragments of stone. Mr. Bancroft suggests that from this apartment there may have been some means of communication with the subterranean galleries already described. The colossal sculpture on the face of the pyramid will receive our attention on a future page.[540]
The general description given above, together with the reported character of the superstructure of this magnificent monument, calls to mind the main features of the great teocalli dedicated to the bloody god Huitzilopochtli in the Aztec capital called Tenochtitlan or Mexico. This blood-stained temple upon whose altars smoked the hearts of countless human victims, is supposed to have occupied the site of the cathedral fronting the Plaza Mayor of the modern city of Mexico. Not a vestige of that terraced pyramid has survived the destructive hand of fanaticism and the transforming work of man and nature which have been going on ever since upon the old site of the capital of the Montezumas. It is said to have been built in five stories, with flights of steps affording access to the summit; but each flight was so constructed with reference to the platform at its top, as to require almost a complete circuit of the building before the next flight could be reached. It was necessary, therefore, in order to reach the summit platform, to pass four times around the pyramid. It is supposed that this was intended to display to better advantage the solemn processions of the priests as their long train mounted gradually the sides of the edifice. The specialist is already familiar with the descriptions by Bernal Diaz, whose particular extravagance of statement renders his work altogether unreliable. Also with the accounts by Torquemada, Gomera, Cortez and Clavigero. The reader has no doubt acquainted himself with the main facts in the writings of the graceful and imaginative Prescott, whose seeming romance, The History of the Conquest of Mexico, has been proven by recent and reliable investigation to have approached much nearer to fact than to fiction. Mr. Tylor, after careful exploration, has expressed in his “Anahuac” his surprise and satisfaction at what he considers to be the proof of Mr. Prescott’s general correctness of statement as to the extent of the Aztec capital and the probable character of its edifices.[541]
For a description of the palaces of Mexico and Chapultepec, the museums, mansions of the nobles, the pavements and aqueducts of that buried city, we refer the reader who has not access to the sources, to the admirable account by Prescott, especially since it more properly belongs to the province of history (now that all traces of them have disappeared) than to that of archæology.[542]
Of many interesting localities where architectural remains still exist, we select one more in the Central region, to illustrate our subject. The ancient religious city of the early Nahuas, Teotihuacan, with its famous pyramids—the traditional origin of which we have already noted[543]—deserves our attention. The city of the gods has had many describers, from the illustrious Humboldt to the observant and philosophical Mr. Tylor. The most complete description, however, is that given in the report of a scientific commission appointed by the Mexican government in 1864, containing accurate plans and views.[544] Sr. Antonio Garcia y Cubas, a member of the commission, subsequently published a most interesting memoir on the pyramids of Teotihuacan, entitled Ensayo de un Estudio comparativo entre las Pirámides Egípcias y Mexicanas (Mexico, 1871). The analogies between Teotihuacan and Egyptian pyramids receive the greater share of attention, though some valuable facts not mentioned in the report of the commission are here made known. Mr. Bancroft has reproduced the main features of the report of the Mexican Commission and compared it with previous researches, thus presenting the reader with probably the best critical version of the exploration of Teotihuacan, to be found in any language.[545] The cut reduced from Almaraz for Mr. Bancroft’s work shows the plan of the Teotihuacan monuments on a scale of about twenty-five hundred and fifty feet to an inch.