550 INDIAN SETTLEMENTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 



outer walls, if they do not contain several inner rooms of the same 

 house (Ticul, fig. 6). The upper closing - of a room is brought about 

 by the gradual approach of the longitudinal walls, till they are near 

 enough to each other to allow the space between to be closed by a few 

 flat, stone tiles. This reduction of space is produced by overreaching 

 stones, each upper row protruding over the one below. The edges thus 

 produced are smoothed over with mortar (e. g. 7 in Tonina fig. 8b) or they 

 are entirely concealed. Where more careful work was required, the 

 stones were cut obliquely, so that when laid one upon the other they 

 would show a straight-lined reduction (fig. 7b, in Ticul), and in Uxinal 

 may actually be seen, in a few cases at least, a few slightly curved lines 

 of reduction, convex or concave. Between the two walls which are 

 thus treated to lead to a closing above there are commonly found some 

 cross pieces of wood, generally zapote wood, which were meant to 

 increase the durability of the structure, and perhaps in dwelling 

 rooms, to suspend hammocks. Above the door openings, which are 

 simply covered flat at the top, without any effort to approach the 

 sides, strong cross beams, mostly of zapote wood, serve as suxvports; 

 in Palenque and Menche Tenamit huge slabs of stone. Where the 

 inner rooms are long and narrow, only the long sides are shortened; 

 on the two short sides the walls go up straight and unreduced; but if 

 the four sides do not differ much (as in Tonina), all are shortened in the 

 above-mentioned way. In small and narrow passages the closing is 

 brought about by horizontal slabs of stone. In Tonina a peculiar way 

 of forming a ceiling is noticed as shown in fig. 8b. 



The inner rooms of a stone house are generally of the same height. 

 Staircases in the interior of houses, I have never seen — excepting the 

 famous tower of Palenque — unless it be in the tower-like raised side 

 wings of Ixtinta, where they only lead on the outside to the upper plat- 

 form. 1 



The inner rooms of Maya stone houses are, as a rule, lacking in orna- 

 ments; only rarely wall paintings are seen (as iu Ohicheuitza, Tonina, 

 Tzibinocac), or stucco ornamentations (Tonina), or in separate niches 

 relievo tablets and hieroglyphics (Palenque), or statues (Menche Tena- 

 mit). Most structures of this kind show their principal ornamentation 

 on the outside. The outside of stone houses in North Yucatan are 

 specially rich in sculpture adornments; and here the contrast of the 

 architectural style with that of Mitla in Oaxaca (the Zapotec district) 

 is most startling, for the above-mentioned edifices, which also differ 

 fundamentally from the Maya buildings iu the construction of their 

 roofs and in the introduction of round pillars of stone have their prin- 

 cipal adornment in the interior, while the external walls are left com- 

 paratively plain and unadorned. This great simplicity of the small 

 inner rooms in a building which is on the outside almost too richly 

 adorned, as is the case in the Casa del Gobernador at Uxmal, makes a 



Others have also been observed iu North Yucatan and Copan. 



