ARCHITECTURE. 119 
autiquarians as the remains of buildings erected by the Danes, who had 
discovered America long before Columbus; but as this allegation is as yet 
totally without historical proof, and these stones without any architectural 
interest, they will not come within the province of our sketch. 
When the Spaniards conquered Mexico they found a certain degree 
of civilization among the aborigines, which was the more surprising as it 
had been developed by no previous intercourse with other people. The 
division of labor was found to be carried to an incredible extent in the 
mechanic and finer arts. The artists as well as the craftsmen finished only 
a certain part of the work, and beyond its completion they had no knowledge 
whatever. They supplied by consummate skill and perseverance in their 
proper spheres the deficiency of their rude tools. 
The civil and religious architecture of the aborigines is only known from 
the descriptions of the conquerors, since the few remains of the same afford 
too little scope for investigation at the present day. The dwellings of the 
poor were made of pebbles or sun-dried bricks, and covered by a net on 
which aloe leaves were fastened like tiles. The houses had only one room; 
only in the towns some were found that had two rooms anda bathing room. 
The dwellings of the more wealthy were of a very porous red freestone 
laid in mortar, and had flat roofs with terraces. The palaces of the kings 
and the temples were of similar form, only larger. 
The art of architecture had reached a good degree of development among 
the people of the plateau of Anahuac, and thence spread to the Aztecs, and 
other tribes with whom the Spaniards came into contact, and whom they 
found thoroughly acquainted with the arts of erecting perpendicular walls, 
of dressing stones, and of constructing vaults, whilst their aqueducts which 
supplied Tenochtitlan with drinking water, their dams, dykes, and highroads, 
sometimes carried through lakes, bore testimony to their practical skill. 
The oldest edifices of which remains are still extant are the two pyramids 
of San Juan de Teotihuacan, in the valley of Mexico, known by the names 
of Sunand Moon. They were the prototypes of the great temple of Tenoch- 
titlan. Their tops are accessible by immense flights of stairs of hewn stones, 
and there are still found fragments of altars which had their places there. 
These pyramids face the quarters of the heavens, and were formerly sur- 
rounded by several hundred smaller ones 90 to 120 feet in height, which 
were grouped all around the pyramids, and had streets between them 
leading to the faces of the large pyramids. The smaller pyramids were 
dedicated to the stars, and probably contained the tombs of the chieftains 
of the different tribes. 
About sixty years ago the pyramid of Papantla (pl. 26, jig. 7) was dis- 
covered by chance in a dense forest near the pyramids of theSun and Moon, 
which covers the slope of the Cordilleras, near the Gulf of Mexico. The 
aborigines had zealously kept the secret of the location of this pyramid, 
being very reluctant to discover the objects of their religious worship to 
the curiosity of the whites. This teocali (temple) is the highest as yet 
known, and consists of admirably hewn and jointed freestone. The struc- 
ture, which has seven stories and is accessible by two flights of stairs, is 
119 
