Plan of Teotihuacan.
The pyramid marked A in the plan is known as Metztli Itzacual, which is interpreted “House of the Moon.” It measures 156 metres or 512 feet from east to west by 130 metres or 426 feet from north to south. According to Almarez, its height is 42 metres or 137 feet, but Sr. Garcia y Cubas, who took his measurement on the opposite side of the pyramid from that measured by Almaraz, says that it is 46 metres or 150 feet high. The summit platform, according to Garcia y Cubas, is six metres or nineteen and a half feet square; quite a discrepancy is here observable between the estimated area given by Beaufoy and copied by Mr. Bancroft as thirty-six by sixty feet, and this actual measurement. The sides of the pyramid nearly face the cardinal points. The eastern slope is 31° 30′, while the southern is somewhat steeper, being 36°. The slope on the east seems to have been unbroken except by a zigzag roadway, leading to the summit. The remaining sides are plainly marked by the remains of three terraces, one of which is still about three feet wide. Humboldt and Tylor both speak of remains of stairways of which no mention is made by the Government Commission. Most observers have described the pyramids as faced with hewn stone, but the commissioners on the contrary found them coated with successive layers of different conglomerates as follows: “1st, small stones from eight to twelve inches in diameter, with mud forming a layer of about thirty-two inches; 2d, fragments of volcanic tufa, as large as a man’s fist, also in mud, to the thickness of sixteen inches; 3d, small grains of tetzontli (a porous volcanic rock) of the size of peas, with mud, twenty-eight inches thick; 4th, a very thin and smooth coat of pure lime mortar. These layers are repeated in the same order nine times and are parallel to the slopes of the pyramid, which would make the thickness of the superficial facing about sixty feet.”[546] On the southern slope, sixty-nine feet from the base, according to Almarez, a gallery large enough to admit a man crawling on hands and knees, extends inward on an incline, a distance of twenty-five feet, and terminates in two square wells or chambers, each five feet square, and one of them fifteen feet deep. Mr. Löwenstern, according to Mr. Bancroft, states that “the gallery is a hundred and fifty-seven feet long, increasing in height to over six feet and a half, as it penetrates the pyramid; that the well is over six feet square, extending apparently down to the base and up to the summit; and that other cross galleries are blocked up by débris!” It is probable that these remarkable galleries never existed, except in Mr. Löwenstern’s imagination, since Sr. Almarez in the report of the official survey pronounces the tunnel already described as simply excavations by treasure-hunters. The pyramid B of the plan, situated five hundred and seventy-five yards south of the House of the Moon, is called Tonatiuh Itzacual, or “House of the Sun.” This pyramid requires no description, except to give its dimensions, since in all other respects it is precisely similar to the House of the Moon. The House of the Sun, according to the measurement of Sr. Garcia y Cubas, which is the most recent, is at the base 232 metres or 761 feet by 220 metres or 722 feet. Its height is 66 metres or 216 feet, while the summit platform measures 18 by 32 metres or 59 by 105 feet. Both this pyramid and the preceding have each a small mound on one of their sides near their base. In the latter instance this mound seems connected with an avenue of mounds just west of it. An embankment marked a, b, c, d, one hundred and thirty feet wide on the summit and twenty feet high, widening out at the extremities into platforms, extends around three sides of the “House of the Sun.” Across the Rio San Juan, and at the distance of twelve hundred and fifty yards southward of the “House of the Sun,” stands the Texcalpa or “citadel.” This is a quadrangular enclosure, measuring on its exterior twelve hundred and forty-six by thirteen hundred and thirty-eight feet. The embankments are of enormous strength, being two hundred and sixty-two feet thick by thirty-three feet high, except on the western side, which is but sixteen feet high. The enclosure is divided unequally by a wall as strong as that upon the sides. On the centre of this wall stands a pyramid ninety-two feet high. At its base are two small mounds besides one in the western enclosure, while fourteen others averaging twenty feet in height are arranged with regularity upon the summit of the enclosing wall. An avenue two hundred and fifty feet wide formed by mounds and measuring two hundred and fifty rods in length, extends from a point south of the “House of the Moon” to the river, as is shown from C to D, in the plan. The avenue is cut up into compartments by six cross embankments, a rather strange feature for which no explanation has been afforded. These mounds are mostly conical, built of fragments of stone and clay, and some of them reach a height of thirty feet. The native traditions call it Micaotli, which may indicate that they were designed for the purposes of sepulture. Almaraz, who excavated one of the multitude of mounds or tlalteles in the vicinity, found four walls meeting at right angles, though a little inclined and forming a small square. Connected with this were steps, at the top of which four other walls enclosed a little room, supposed to have been a tomb. The natives describe the discovery of a stone box in one of the mounds containing a skull, with about such a collection of trinkets as is commonly met with in the stone graves of Tennessee. Mayer describes a massive stone column, ten feet long and four feet square, cut from a single block. This resembles the elaborate capitol of a column resting on a base with scarcely a shaft intervening. It is called the fainting stone by the natives, who believe that whoever sits on it is sure to faint instantly.
One additional group of ruins, as yet unclassified with any of the types we have described, merits our attention. This group is known as Los Edificios of Quemada, situated in southern Zacatecas north of the Central plateau and probably the home of the Chichimecs.[547] Mr. Bancroft has attempted to reconstruct the unsatisfactory accounts of the several explorers of Quemada, but with little success. We therefore decline adding another comparative failure to the list of literature on these ruins. Some general observations, however, may not be out of place. The Cerro de los Edificios is a natural eminence about half a mile long and between one hundred and two hundred yards wide, except at its southern extremity where it increases to a width of five hundred yards. The authorities differ as to its height, one saying from two to three hundred feet, and another eight to nine hundred feet above the plain. Ancient roads well paved radiate in various directions from the hill, some of them extending a distance of five or six miles. The northern brow of the hill, where the descent is not so precipitous as at the other points, is guarded by a stone wall, as are all other points where the precipitous sides do not offer a sufficient barrier to an intruder from without. The surface of the hill is quite uneven, and these irregularities have been formed into terraces supported by stone walls. Foundations have thus been secured for a multitude of structures, some of them perfectly pyramidal and others consisting of quadrangular enclosures or squares, terraced and having steps descending to the court within, where pyramidal structures of stone are found. On the eastern terrace of the Cerro, a round pillar, eighteen feet high and nineteen feet in circumference, stands in proximity to a wall of as great height as the pillar. Traces of nine similar pillars are visible, and the probability is that they formed part of a balcony or perhaps a portico. Adjoining this wall is an enclosure measuring 138 by 100 feet, in which are eleven pillars in line, each seventeen feet in circumference and as high as an adjacent wall, namely eighteen feet. The distance from the wall is twenty-three feet, and the presumption is that the pillars supported a roof. There are no doorways, properly so called, since the doorways are large quadrangular openings extending to the full height of the halls. No windows were discovered anywhere. The material is gray porphyry from hills across an intervening valley, and the mortar is reddish clay, mixed with straw, and is of poor quality. Sculpture, hieroglyphics, pottery, human remains, idols, arrow-heads, and obsidian fragments are totally wanting, thus presenting a strange contrast with all other Mexican ruins. Nevertheless, the massiveness of the fortifications, the height and great thickness of the walls, none of which are less than eight feet thick and in one instance over twenty, the extensive system of paved roads, besides great elevated stone causeways running through the city, the size of the enclosed squares, one of which contains six acres, all indicate that this might have been the capital city of a powerful people, a people whose architectural affinities with all others that we are acquainted with are very few, and whose contrasts are numerous. Certainly the type and execution of the masonry, though massive, is more primitive than found elsewhere in Mexico. We do not mean that it is more ancient, for such cannot be true, but inferior to that in other parts of Mexico and the Central American region. The arch of overlapping stones is entirely wanting, and but for the round columns without either base or capitol, the steps toward advancement in the art would only be those common to that generally vigorous and warlike period which, in the history of every people, has preceded a higher civilization. Mr. Bancroft has published Burghes’ plan of Quemada but to little purpose, since the descriptive matter available does not contain a reference to more than one-fourth of the many structures indicated.
In the course of the chapter, we have indicated the principal resemblances and contrasts between the various styles treated. The pyramidal structure we have found employed by both Mayas and Nahuas, with certain modifications and with such resemblances as would seem to indicate that both peoples had been originally, or at an early day, near neighbors, and that the younger people, at least the more recent in their occupancy of Mexico and Central America, the Nahuas, may have copied the pyramid in its perfected form from the Mayas. We have noted some difference between the ancient and modern Maya styles. In the ancient or Chiapan, the irregularities in the face of the pyramid caused by constructing it of tiers of rectangular stones were filled with mortar, and an even surface produced. In the modern or Yucatec style the blocks of stone-facing are bevelled to the angle of the slope. Furthermore, in some instances the corners of the pyramids were rounded. At Palenque the superstructures were of only one story, while Yucatec structures were often formed of three receding stories. Of the Copan ruins little can be said intelligently, except that the pyramid combined with the terrace is all-pervading, but still is not unlike the Palenque style in its main features. The Nahua architecture offers a great variety of styles, but at the same time the pyramidal structure is the fundamental feature of all kinds of structures. Mitla offers an exception to this rule, but there are doubts as to whether Mitla may be classified as a Nahua ruin at all. The early writers devoted much of their attention to seeming old world resemblances in ancient American architecture, but their speculations in most cases were puerile and trivial. Mr. Stephens, with the experience which the careful study and observation of old world monuments afforded him, strongly denies that any such analogies are to be found among the Maya groups.[548] M. Viollet-le-Duc considers the monuments of Mexico, especially those of Maya origin, to have been influenced by white and yellow races, the former of the Aryan from the north-east, the latter the Turanian from the north-west. He seems to find some analogy between ancient Japanese temples (and quotes a description from Charlevoix, Histoire du Japan, ed. 1754, tom. i, chap. x, p. 171) and those of ancient America. He thinks that the style of architecture at Uxmal indicates clearly that the first structures were of wood and resembled the style prevalent in Japan. However, the wooden structures more properly originated with the white races, while the use of stucco is characteristic of the Turanian or Yellow races of the north-west. He thinks it certain that Mitla and Palenque were influenced by a white race.[549] Señor Garcia y Cubas has attempted to prove in a careful argument that the pyramids of Teotihuacan were built for the same purposes as were the pyramids of Egypt. He considers the analogy established in eleven particulars, as follows: the site chosen is the same; the structures are oriented with slight variation, the line through the centres of the pyramids is in the astronomical meridian; the construction in grades and steps is the same; in both cases the larger pyramids are dedicated to the sun; the Nile has a “valley of the dead,” as in Teotihuacan there is a “street of the dead;” some monuments of each class have the nature of fortifications; the smaller mounds are of the same nature and for the same purpose; both pyramids have a small mound joined to one of their faces; the openings discovered in the Pyramid of the Moon are also found in some Egyptian pyramids; the interior arrangement of the pyramids is analogous.[550] Mr. Delafield by a less systematic argument advocates the same theory. However, his capability to discern analogies is not confined to a single structure, since in the pyramid of Cholula and the teocalli of the city of Mexico he finds a counterpart to the temple of Belus at Babylon, as described by Herodotus. The walls around the hill at Xochicalco explain the use of similar embankments at Circleville and Marietta in Ohio, while the order of the apartments at Mitla bears a striking analogy to the arrangements of apartments in the temples of upper Egypt. This and much more Mr. Delafield has been able to discover, but unfortunately only with certainty to his own mind.[551] Löwenstern is equally certain that the American monuments were not constructed by a nation analogous to that which built the pyramids of Egypt.[552] Ranking, on the other hand, finds that Teotihuacan was named after the illustrious dead buried beneath its pyramids, as was the custom in Egypt, but in this instance the name is analogous to that of Thiautcan or Khan, the name of the grand Khan of the Monguls and Tartars who occupied the throne of China at the time of Sir John Mandeville’s visit to Pekin in the fourteenth century; and as at Teotihuacan and among the Monguls the sun and moon were worshipped, so, according to Ranking, those American monuments are attributable to Mongul architects.[553] It would be easy for us to continue the citation of these fancied analogies, but it is no doubt already apparent to the reader that they are generally of too trivial a character to serve the ends of science, and we therefore dismiss their further consideration.[554]
Stucco Bas-relief in the Palace. Fig. 1.
Sculpture and Hieroglyphics.—The mound sculpture, as has been observed in the cuts illustrating a previous chapter of this work, though comparatively rude in most cases, still, in a few instances, is quite remarkable as affording true representations of animals and possibly of the human face. Considerable progress in the art of ornamentation in terra-cotta is displayed on many of the vases and burial urns exhumed from the mounds. Many of the lines, figures and borders traced in relief and sometimes in taglio on those vessels indicate not only that a sense of the beautiful was present, but that it had been cultivated to a considerable extent. The same remarks apply to the pottery of the Pueblos and Cliff-dwellers. At Palenque, however, the student of art meets with no mean attempts at delineating the human form—in fact, the success obtained in this difficult field alone characterized the work of the Palenque artists. It is presumed that nearly all of the piers separating the doorways in the eastern wall of the palace were ornamented with stucco bas-reliefs. Two out of six of the best preserved are shown in the following cuts. The most remarkable feature of the first (Fig. 1, reduced from Waldeck for Bancroft’s work) is the cranial type, deformed to a shocking degree, probably by artificial pressure, so generally employed by the ancient American races. Possibly it is but a caricature.
Stucco Bas-relief in the Palace. Fig. 2.