THE MAYAN CIVILIZATION 69 
are built around courts or plazas and there is usually 
an artificial acropolis which is a great terraced mound 
serving as a common base or platform from which the 
individual pyramidal bases of several temples rise. At 
some sites this acropolis is a natural hill which has been 
trimmed down or added to, but at other sites it is 
entirely artificial. At Copan there is an especially fine 
example of artificial platform mound rising from one 
end of the Great Plaza and affording space for several 
temples as well as for sunken courts with stepped sides 
that may have been theatres. The river washing 
against one side of this great mound has removed per- 
haps a third of it and made a vertical section that shows 
the method of construction. It is apparent that the 
mound was enlarged and old walls and floors buried. 
Mayan buildings are of two principal kinds. One is 
a temple pure and simple and the other has been called 
a palace. The temple is a rectangular structure crown- 
ing a rather high pyramid that rises in several steps or 
terraces. Asa rule the temple has a single front with 
one or more doorways and is approached by a broad 
stairway. ‘The pyramid is ordinarily a solid mass of 
rubble and earth faced with cement or cut stone and 
rarely contains compartments. Some temples have 
but a single chamber while others have two or more 
chambers, the central or innermost one being specially 
developed into a sanctuary. The so-called palaces are 
clusters of rooms on low and often irregular platforms. 
These palaces may have been habitations of the priests 
and nobility. The common people doubtless lived in 
palm-thatched huts similar to those used today in the 
some region. 
The typical Mayan construction is a faced concrete. 
The limestone, which abounds in nearly all parts of the 
