To what purposes were these truly magnificent structures dedicated? Were they palaces, temples, tombs, fortresses, dwelling places, storehouses or places of refuge? Neither archeologists nor antiquarians have satisfactorily answered these questions. According to many of the leading archeologists they are the most interesting and best preserved ruins in North America. Here was a great city built by a race prior to the Aztecs, for that race could tell the Spanish conquerors nothing of its builders. The secrets guarded by the huge monoliths of stone, and the high mosaic-covered walls of Mitla are safe from prying eyes. Not one city alone stood here, for there are many remains of walls, columns and huge monoliths thrown down similar to these, scattered all over this valley. The best authority says that they were used for tombs but this could not have been the only use. They were probably also used for places of worship, public purposes, or cities of refuge, or perhaps for all those purposes.
ENTRANCE TO THE UNDERGROUND CHAMBER, MITLA
NORTH TEMPLE, MITLA
HALL OF THE MONOLITHS, MITLA
A close investigation shows that there are five distinct groups of the ruins, but some of them are in badly preserved condition. The village covers the site of a part of them. There is a similarity in the structure of all, as the outer walls are composed of oblong panels of mosaic forming arabesques and grecques. At first sight, or at a distance, it looks like sculptured designs on the walls. Closer inspection reveals the fact that this mosaic is formed of pieces of stone accurately cut and fitted into the face of the walls. These pieces are about seven inches in length, one inch in thickness, and two in breadth. The patterns cannot well be described as they are so complicated. All the ornamentation consists of geometrical figures, either rectangular or diagonal, and differs from all other ruins in Mexico, in that there are no human or animal figures.
There is an underground chamber beneath one of the temples, built in the shape of a cross with each arm about twelve feet long. The sides are worked into the same mosaic pattern as the rest of the walls. It is generally believed that these chambers were tombs, although some contend that they were the entrance to subterranean passages leading long distances away. If so, the passages were filled up long ago.
The northwestern group is in the best state of preservation. One of the buildings here covers nearly eight thousand square feet, and has all its massive walls intact with scarcely a stone thrown down. The characteristic entrance, consisting of three doors, side by side, is seen here also, fronting the interior of the court. The lintels are immense blocks of stone eighteen feet long, five feet wide and four feet high. How these immense stones were transported to this spot and raised without the aid of machinery, is as great a mystery as similar accomplishments by the Egyptians. Through these doors the famous Hall of Monoliths, or Columns, is reached. This is a wonderful relic of prehistoric architecture. The six monolithic columns, still standing in this room are each twelve feet in height and almost nine feet in circumference. They are plain stones having neither pedestal nor capital and are unique among the ruins of the world.
Torquemada, an old Spanish historian, writes of this hall in the following quaint style: “There was in those Edifices, or Square of the Temple, another Hall, all framed around Pillars of Stone; very high and so thick that scarce might two Men of good height embrace them so as to touch finger tips the one with the other. And these Pillars were all of one piece; and they say that all the Pillars and Columns, from top to bottom, was four Fathoms. The Pillars were very like to those of St. Mary, the Greater, of Rome, all very well and smoothly wrought.” This hall is more than a hundred feet long, and twenty feet wide. These great stones may have supported a roof formerly but there is no evidence of it at the present time.
From the Hall of the Monoliths a dark, stone-covered passage leads into a room called the Audience Chamber. This is a splendid room with its walls in carved mosaics, or a setting of tiles, after the Grecian models. There are four long, narrow rooms, or corridors, on either side of this main chamber without other entrance except the one just mentioned. One of these, the West room, is most beautiful and is nearly perfect, as scarcely a tile is broken or missing from its exquisitely inlaid walls which at first inspection look like stucco work. The tiles are so accurately inlaid that no mortar was used, or needed, to hold them in place. This is the Corridor of the Mosaics. There are also traces of a lustrous, dark, red paint, used on a hard cement plaster. It is quite probable that all the buildings in the five groups were as carefully constructed and as exquisitely ornamented as this one, but they have been destroyed by succeeding races.