166 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 



earth. Perhaps the most noteworthy structure is a 

 wide hall containing seven columns built of slabs of 

 stone in the same manner as the walls. All in all the 

 architectural types as well as the observed contacts in 

 art point to a late epoch of the Toltecan period. Other 

 ruins of the same character as La Quemada occur at 

 Chalchihuites on the frontier of Durango and at 

 Totoate, etc., in northern Jalisco. 



The most important artistic product from this north- 

 western region is a peculiar kind of pottery which might 

 be described as cloisonne or encaustic ware. Exam- 

 ination shows that this pottery was first burned in the 

 usual way so that it acquired a red or orange color. 

 Then the surface was covered with a layer of greenish or 

 blackish pigment to the depth of perhaps a sixteenth of 

 an inch. A large part of this surface layer was then 

 carefully cut away with a sharp blade in such a way that 

 the remaining portions outlined certain geometric and 

 realistic figures. The sunken spaces, from which the 

 material had just been removed, were then filled in 

 flush with red, yellow, white, and green pigments. The 

 designs on this class of pottery are thus mosaics in which 

 the different colors are separated by narrow lines of a 

 neutral tint. The geometric motives show a marked use 

 of the terrace, the fret, and the scroll. The realistic sub- 

 jects are presented in a highly conventionalized manner 

 and have few stylistic similarities to the figures from the 

 Valley of Mexico. Representative collections of this 

 ware from Totoate, already referred to, and from 

 Estanzuela, a hacienda near Guadalajara are on exhibi- 

 tion in the American Museum of Natural History. 



Cloisonne pottery of a somewhat different style 

 sometimes occurs at Toltecan sites in the Valley of 

 Mexico, such as Tula, Teotihuacan, and Atzcapotzalco, 

 but fresco pottery which resembles it at first glance is 



