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MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 



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 



Fig. 19. Groundplans of Yaxchilan Temples: (a) Structure 42; 

 (b) Structure 23. 



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 



