MEXICO

Mounds at San Juan Teotihuacan, seen from the “Pyramid of the Moon”

CHAPTER VII—MEXICO: ARCHITECTURAL REMAINS AND POTTERY

Now that a sketch has been given of the beliefs and mode of life of the Ancient Mexicans, it is necessary to deal in some measure with the remains of their culture scattered over the country. As far as architecture is concerned, the greater proportion of ruined buildings must be considered to have been either temples or structures associated in some way with religion, and perhaps government. The Mexicans gave of their best to the gods, and though the corvée system enabled large numbers of men to be employed at one time on works of considerable magnitude, the rulers seem to have spent more care on the buildings erected for the service of their deities than on their own habitations. The peculiar feature of Mexican architecture lies in the fact that every building of importance was erected upon a substructure, terrace or truncated pyramid, which, though essentially secondary in importance to the building or buildings with which it was crowned, yet represented a vast amount of labour, many hundred times greater than that expended on the superstructure. This feature has been unfortunate, in a sense, for Mexican archæology, since the pyramidal mounds, once the superimposed buildings have disappeared, present a superficial analogy to the pyramids of Egypt. There can however be no real comparison, the Egyptian pyramid represented a building in itself, while the Mexican was in essence a mere accessory. The foundation-mounds must be distinguished from the mounds of the northern Pueblo region, which are formed for the most part of the debris of buildings which have fallen into decay. True foundation-mounds are rarely found north of a line drawn, roughly, from La Quemada in Zacatecas to the Gulf of Mexico in the region of the Panuco valley; but south of it, right down to Honduras, they are a characteristic feature of architecture. There was a large number of temple pyramids, of varied dimensions, in Tenochtitlan (Sahagun gives a long list), but two were of outstanding importance, one in Tenochtitlan proper, the other in the suburb of Tlaltelolco. Both were so utterly destroyed by the Spaniards that it is not easy at the present time to fix their exact position. The most recent, and most successful, attempt to work out the details of the great Mexican temple from all sources, literary and archæological, is that of Maudslay, to which reference can be made by those wishing for more minute particulars (see also Fig. [12]; p. 87). The pyramid, or teocalli, stood at the eastern end of a large court, about 300 by 350 yards, surrounded by a wall on which were carved snakes. It was built in five tiers, of earth and stones faced with masonry; the base measured something over 100 yards, and the upper surface over 70 yards square. A flight of more than 100 steps on the west side gave access to the summit, and on the eastern edge of the latter were two shrines, each of two storeys, built, as seems most probable, chiefly of wood. These two shrines were dedicated respectively to Uitzilopochtli (towards the south) and Tlaloc (towards the north), and faced west, but the priests and worshippers would face east, the direction of the rising sun, and there is reason to believe that the equinox was calculated by observing the rising of the sun between the two shrines. In front of the latter was the sacrificial stone, and below, in the court, a number of other temples, priestly residences, and other ceremonial buildings, including a tlaxtli-court and the tzompantli, or frame upon which were erected the skulls of sacrificial victims. The other temples in the court included one to Tezcatlipoca, one in circular form to Quetzalcoatl, and one to the planet Venus (Tlauizcalpantecutli), whose image was painted on a pillar in the shrine. The Tlaltelolco temple was similar, though a little larger, and supported two shrines dedicated, the one to Uitzilopochtli and the other to Tezcatlipoca. Larger than either of these imposing buildings was the teocalli of Quetzalcoatl at Cholula. This still exists, though in sadly mutilated form; the length of its base was calculated by Humboldt as nearly 440 metres. For an example of an ordinary Mexican shrine, as exemplified in ruins, it is necessary to go outside what is strictly Aztec territory. Near Cuernavaca, in the Tlalhuica district, among rocky peaks towering above the valley, is the temple of Tepoztlan (Pl. [XIV, 2]), dedicated probably to one of the octli-gods (Tepoztecatl). This region formed one of the early Mexican conquests and the temple bears the name of the Mexican king Auitzotl and the date of his death. Seen from the east, the building appears to be a three-tiered pyramid, the upper tier in reality being the back of the shrine. The walls are of porous volcanic stone set in mortar, and the roof was similarly constructed. The shrine is a simple rectangular building with an inner chamber (of the type Fig. [76, 4]; p. 327), and the interior is ornamented with carvings. The front wall is pierced by three doorways, separated by quadrangular pillars, which are in reality sections of the wall. In front, on the lower terrace, is a quadrangular “altar,” probably corresponding to the quauhxicalli at Mexico. Another, and somewhat similar temple, also apparently of Aztec origin, is found at Teayo, near Tuxpan in the Huaxtec country. This is a three-tiered pyramid, about forty feet high, faced with sandstone blocks over which a coat of stucco has been laid. At the top is a simple quadrangular shrine (of the type Fig. [76, 1]), with stuccoed and frescoed interior, standing on a low terrace. The stairway is on the west side, and the worshippers therefore faced east, as in the case of the temples already mentioned. This, we are told, was the proper orientation for Mexican temples of the first importance. But of far greater interest and importance than these two small temples are the extensive remains at Teotihuacan, close to Mexico, a site intimately connected with the Toltec and mentioned in Mexican myth as the scene of the rising of the historical sun. At the present day this site presents the appearance of a conglomeration of mounds varying greatly in size and spread over so large an area that their bulk is difficult to realize. The two principal features are two vast pyramids, from the smaller of which runs a depressed road, two to three hundred feet wide, past the other for a distance of nearly two miles in a straight line. This road is interrupted by several low embankments and small pyramids, and bordered by a large number of mounds arranged in series. At the southern end of the road and to the east is a complex of mounds, arranged in a square and including a pyramid of some size. The photograph figured on Pl. [XII] is taken from the summit of the lesser of the two great pyramids, usually called the “pyramid of the moon,” and looks down the sunk roadway, called the “road of the dead.” The greater pyramid, or “pyramid of the sun,” appears in the centre of the picture, but the complex of mounds towards the southern end of the road is barely visible. The “pyramid of the sun” measures about 700 feet along the base, and the sides rise at an angle of 45 degrees to a platform about 100 feet square. Both it and the surrounding mounds are composed of masses of local earth and stone and adobe (unbaked clay). It was originally faced with roughly dressed stone and received a final coat of stucco. Beneath the outer facing a second has been discovered at some depth, and it may be that several such were constructed during the process of building in order to give solidity to the mass; but it is more likely that the outer layer represents an addition to the original building. Other evidence of phases in construction have been discovered in some of the mounds, in cases where an entire building has been filled solid in order to support a later edifice above it. Growth by accretion of this nature was a feature of many of the Maya sites, as will be seen later. It is probable that this mighty pyramid was approached by a stairway on its western face from the “path of the dead.” The general assemblage of the lesser mounds seems to exhibit more evidence of design than many Mexican ruins, and the whole site bears the stamp of considerable antiquity as well as long-continued occupation. In particular is to be noticed a tendency to group the mounds round quadrangular courts, a tendency which, as will be seen later, is characteristic of the Zapotec area. The district from early times bore the reputation of a burial-ground of great sanctity, and the lesser mounds were at first believed to be burial-tumuli (whence the name “path of the dead” given to the sunk roadway). Excavation however, as far as carried out, seems to prove that the greater number supported buildings of a residential nature, many of them of an unusually complex ground-plan. The walls were of lava fragments and adobe, dressed with mortar. The roofs of the larger apartments were supported on pillars, probably of wood, of which the rectangular bases, similar in construction to the walls, have been found. Stone-carving is practically non-existent, probably for the same reason that there are no well-dressed stone facings, viz. unsuitability of local material; but the interiors were ornamented with frescoes in beautiful colours in which plant motives play an important part.

Photo F. J. Cooper Clark

MEXICO

The ruins most nearly resembling those at Teotihuacan are found at Monte Alban in Zapotec territory, on a lofty ridge overlooking the city of Oaxaca. Holmes describes the appearance of the site as it struck him when he had climbed the long ascent from the latter city as follows: “The surface was not covered with scattered and obscure piles of ruins as I had expected, but the whole mountain had been remodelled by the hand of man until not a trace of natural contour remained. There was a vast system of level courts enclosed by successive terraces, and bordered by pyramids upon pyramids. Even the sides of the mountain descended in a succession of terraces, and the whole crest, separated by the hazy atmosphere from the dimly seen valleys more than a thousand feet below, and isolated completely from the blue range beyond, seemed suspended in mid-air.” The quadrangular assemblage of foundation-mounds round courts is even more noticeable here than at Teotihuacan, though the limitations of the available building space rendered the arrangement less free on the whole. Most of the mounds seem to have been faced with quartzite blocks, barely dressed at all owing to the hard nature of the stone, and carved ornament is not very common. Few traces of buildings have been discovered, but excavation is by no means complete; however, the foundations of at least one structure with a complex arrangement of chambers have been laid bare, and it is earnestly to be hoped that some properly qualified archæologist may be entrusted with the task of thorough investigation. Monte Alban is further remarkable for the presence of sculptured grave-slabs and pillars bearing designs and inscriptions in a peculiar style (similar to Fig. [15]; p. 106). Many Mexican day-signs can be recognized, but some of the glyphs are enclosed in “cartouches” of Maya style (to anticipate), and are accompanied by numerals in which five is expressed by a bar, another Maya characteristic. Carvings in similar style are found at other sites in the Zapotec area. Not unlike Monte Alban are the better preserved ruins at Quiengola, near Tehuantepec, and here the quadrangular arrangement of foundation-mounds round courts takes a very definite form. Some of these mounds are in the form of three-tiered pyramids (Fig. [32, b]), others of long terraces supporting buildings divided into a succession of simple chambers, each opening on the terrace, and occasionally enclosing a small shrine (Fig. [32, a]). The latter bear a striking resemblance to Maya buildings, as will be seen later (compare Figs. [76, b], and [77]; pp. 327 and 329). Adobe was used in large quantities in these buildings, and clay as mortar, and certain groups of structures are found which are decidedly complex in arrangement. At Tlacolula, a site rather similar to Quiengola, cyclopean masonry is found, and at Xoxo in the same district we have mounds built of earthy material with frequent horizontal layers of mortar, a peculiarity also seen at Tlacolula at Monte Alban, and again at Cholula, a city closely associated with Toltec culture. In the same district are found sculptured slabs in a style similar to those of Monte Alban, and in both regions occur stone heads, usually so flattened as to present an axe-like appearance, with a projection at the back for insetting in a wall (Fig. [33, c]).

PLATE XIV