TEOTIHUACAN (continued).
Ruins of a Teotihuacan Palace—Cemetery—Bull-Fighting—Pits
and Quarries—Excavations—A Toltec Palace—Ants—Ancient
Tombs—Sepulchral Stone.
After a brief survey I discovered traces of cement, which made it
evident that part of the village is built on the site of the ancient
city; so I made up my mind to try my luck here before venturing
into the very heart of the ruins, which I wished to take time to
study. I began by opening four trenches in a small square used for
bull-fighting, not far from Plaza Mayor. The first two yielded nothing
particular, the next gave more satisfactory results; for here we
came upon some dozen children’s tombs, and five or six adults’, if
we are to judge from vases and other objects we found, for nothing
could be made of the bones, which crumbled into dust. The few vases
we unearthed are made of black clay, with hollow lines, not unlike
those at Tula. They have flat bottoms from six to seven inches wide,
with open brims, and from two to three inches high. Close to them were
found traces of skeletons, which we know to have been those of poor
people, for the bodies of the rich were burnt and their ashes placed in
tombs. The vases were often found in couples; they are unfortunately
so old, the ground is so hard as to form one mass with the vase, and
so notwithstanding all our precautions, all our care in digging the
ground and taking it up with daggers, they were broken to pieces, and
I was only able to save a few. As to the bodies, they were so far
gone, that it was impossible to ascertain their position; they were
generally found from one foot three inches to one foot nine inches, and
three feet three inches deep. The children were buried in a kind of
circular vases, with upright brims; two of the skeletons were almost
perfect, but the skulls, as thin as a sheet of paper, fell to pieces at
my touch. On the same day I unearthed a goodly number of terra-cotta
figures, a fine moulded mask, an axe, a few pots, one of which is
ribbed and beautifully moulded, a number of small round pebbles,
evidently marbles buried with the children; besides a large quantity
of obsidian knives, by far the finest and lightest I have seen; round
pieces of slate, presumably used as currency, _bezotes_, rings worn on
the lower lip, arrow-heads, whilst numerous sheets of mica were found
in every tomb.[75] Among human remains we also noticed those of the
_techichi_, edible dog, parts of birds, and victuals, to sustain the
dead on his long journey beyond the grave.
Leaving my men under my substitute, I went with Marcelino a little way
beyond the village towards Pachucha, to visit the cuevas or pits of
old quarries, which were subsequently used as catacombs; they are two
miles and a half west of the Pyramid of the Moon. The first we visit
has a circular aperture of considerable size, with three narrow low
galleries branching off in different directions at an angle of forty
to forty-five degrees. The first explorers of these caves found human
remains side by side with those of ruminants. The next cavern, of far
greater dimensions, is three hundred and fifty feet further off. We
enter one of the galleries, and walk for ten minutes before we can see
the end; my guide assures me that this gallery extends as far as the
Pyramid of the Sun, three miles beyond; that the whole country around
is undermined by these cuevas, the soil of which is conglomerate.
[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF PRINCIPAL RUINS OF TEOTIHUACAN.
No. 1, Pyramid of the Moon. No. 2, Pyramid of the Sun. No. 3,
Citadel. No. 4, Toltec Palace discovered at Teotihuacan. No.
5, Path of Death.]
We now come to large halls, supported by incredibly small pillars;
the population round about use them as ball-rooms twice a year, and
nothing can give an idea of the almost magic effect they then present.
In this cueva the conglomerate is split up into gigantic isolated
blocks of the most fantastic, weird shapes, in juxtaposition with a
perpendicular calcareous formation. The next cavern we visit has a well
and a rotunda in the centre; ghastly stories are told of the brigands
who formerly used this cueva as a burial-place for their victims after
having plundered them; wild suppositions which derive a colouring from
the numerous human remains to be found everywhere, which are, however,
undoubtedly the bones of the earlier Indians, as the thickness of the
skulls sufficiently indicates.
From the cuevas we return to the ruins, where I look forward to
bringing to light a house, that I may prove Teotihuacan to have been
as much a Toltec city as Tula. Whilst casting about where to begin I
noticed parts of walls, broken cement and terraces, north of the river,
when forthwith we cleared away the rubbish until we reached the floor,
following the walls, corners, and openings of the various apartments,
as we had done at Tula; and when three days later the engineer, Mr.
P. Castro, joined us, ten rooms, forming part of the house, had been
unearthed. He was so surprised at our success that, stopping short, he
exclaimed: “Why, it is our Tula palace over again!”
And so it was—inner court, apartments on different levels, everything
as we had found before, save that here the rooms were much larger and
most supported by pillars; one of these chambers measures 49 feet on
one side, that is 732 feet in circumference. The walls, nearly six feet
seven inches thick, are built of stone and mortar, incrusted with deep
cement, sloping up about three feet and terminating perpendicularly.
The centre of the room is occupied by six pillars, on which rose
stone, brick, or wood columns bearing the roof.
[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF TOLTEC PALACE AT TEOTIHUACAN.]
This is undoubtedly a palace, and these are the reception rooms;
the sleeping apartments were behind; unfortunately they lie under
cultivated ground covered with Indian corn, so we are not permitted to
disturb them. In the large room we observed small stone rings fixed to
the wall, and on each side of the entrance, also fixed to the wall,
two small painted slabs. What had been their use? To support lights
at night? But how was that possible? For even now the only lights the
natives use are _ocotes_, pieces of resinous wood, whilst the slabs
bear no traces of smoke. I had, it is true, met in the course of my
excavations with terra-cotta objects which might have been taken
for candlesticks, but to which I had attached no importance, when I
suddenly recollected a passage in Sahagun bearing on the subject: “The
chandler who knows how to do his work first bleaches, cleans and melts
the wax, and when in a liquid state he pours it on a wick and rolls
it between two slabs; he sometimes puts a layer of black wax within a
white layer,” etc.[76] My first supposition had been right.
Here also the floors and walls are coated with mortar, stucco, or
cement, save that in the dwellings of the rich, necessarily few, they
are ornamented with figures, as principal subject, with a border like
an Aubusson carpet. The colours are not all effaced, red, black, blue,
yellow, and white, are still discernible; a few examples of these
frescoes are to be seen in the Trocadéro. I am convinced that numerous
treasures might be brought to light were regular excavations to be
made, but the Mexican Government, which would have most interest in
such a work, does not seem to care to undertake it.
Leaving my men under the direction of Colonel Castro, I return to
the “Path of Death,” composed of a great number of small mounds,
_Tlateles_, the tombs of great men. They are arranged symmetrically
in avenues terminating at the sides of the great pyramids, on a plain
of some 620 feet to 975 feet in length; fronting them are cemented
steps, which must have been used as seats by the spectators during
funeral ceremonies or public festivities. On the left, amidst a mass
of ruins, are broken pillars, said to have belonged to a temple; the
huge capitals have some traces of sculpture. Next comes a quadrangular
block, of which a cast is to be found in the main gallery of the
Trocadéro.
In the course of my excavations I had found now and again numerous
pieces of worked obsidian, precious stones, beads, etc., within the
circuit of ants’ nests, which these busy insects had extracted from
the ground in digging their galleries; and now on the summit of the
lesser pyramid I again came upon my friends, and among the things I
picked out of their nests was a perfect earring of obsidian, very small
and as thin as a sheet of paper. It is not so curious as it seems at
first, for we are disturbing a ground formed by fifty generations.
Glass does not seem to have been known to the Indians, for although
Tezcatlipoca was often figured with a pair of spectacles, they may only
have been figurative ones like those of the manuscripts, terra-cotta,
or bassi-rilievi, for there is nothing to show that they had any idea
of optics.
I now went back to my men, when to my great delight I found they had
unearthed two large slabs showing the entrance of two sepulchres; they
were the first I had yet found, and considering them very important,
I immediately telegraphed to Messrs. Chavero and Berra, both of whom
are particularly interested in American archæology. I expected to see
them come by the very next train, to view not only the tombstones, but
also the palace, which attracted a great number of visitors; but to my
surprise one sent word that he had a headache, whilst the other pleaded
a less poetic ailment. _Ab uno disce omnes_; most American writers
speak of ancient monuments from hearsay—from foreign travelers who have
visited them—they never having taken the trouble to travel any distance
to see them.
One of the slabs closed a vault, and the other a cave with
perpendicular walls; we went down the former by a flight of steps in
fairly good condition, yet it was a long and rather dangerous affair,
for we were first obliged to demolish a wall facing us, in which we
found a skull, before we could get to the room which contained the
tombs. The vases within them are exactly like those we found in the
plaza, except that one is filled with a fatty substance—like burnt
flesh—mixed with some kind of stuff, the woof of which is still
discernible, besides beads of serpentine, bones of dogs and squirrels,
knives of obsidian twisted by the action of fire. We know from Sahagun
that the dead were buried with their clothes and their dogs to guide
and defend them in their long journey: “When the dead were ushered into
the presence of the king of the nether world, _Mictlantecutli_, they
offered him papers, bundles of sticks, pine-wood and perfumed reeds,
together with loosely twisted threads of white and red cotton, a manta,
a maxtli, tunics, and shirts. When a woman died her whole wardrobe
was carefully put aside, and a portion burnt eighty days after; this
operation was repeated on that day twelve months for four years, when
everything that had belonged to the deceased was finally consumed. The
dead then came out of the first circle to go successively through nine
others encompassed by a large river. On its banks were a number of dogs
which helped their owners to cross the river; whenever a ghost neared
the bank, his dog immediately jumped into the river and swam by his
side or carried him to the opposite bank.”[77] It was on this account
that Indians had always several small dogs about them.
The speech which was addressed to the dead when laid out previous to
being buried is so remarkable as to make one suspect that the author
unconsciously added something of his own: “Son, your earthly hardships
and sufferings are over. We are but mortal, and it has pleased the
Lord to call you to himself. We had the privilege of being intimately
acquainted with you; but now you share the abode of the gods, whither
we shall all follow, for such is the destiny of man. The place is large
enough to receive every one; but although all are bound for the gloomy
bourn, none ever return.” Then followed the speech addressed to the
nearest kinsman of the dead: “O son, cheer up; eat, drink, and let
not your mind be cast down. Against the divine fiat who can contend?
This is not of man’s doing; it is the Lord’s. Take comfort to bear up
against the evils of daily life; for who is able to add a day, an hour,
to his existence? Cheer up, therefore, as becomes a man.”[78]
[Illustration: VOTIVE STONES, TEOTIHUACAN.]
But to return to our tombstones. They are both alike, being about
five feet high, three feet five inches broad, and six inches and a
half thick. The upper side is smooth, the lower has some carving in
the shape of a cross, four big tears or drops of water, and a pointed
tongue in the centre, which, starting from the bottom of the slab, runs
up in a line parallel to the drops.
Knowing how general was the worship of Tlaloc among the Indians, I
conjectured this had been a monument to the god of rain, to render him
propitious to the dead; a view shared and enlarged upon by Dr. Hamy
in a paper read before the Académie des Sciences in November, 1882;
and that I should be in accord with the eminent specialist on American
antiquities is a circumstance to make me proud. I may add that the
carving of this slab is similar to that of the cross on the famous
basso-rilievo at Palenque; so that the probability of the two monuments
having been erected to the god of rain is much strengthened thereby.
As our slabs are far more archaic than those at Palenque, we think
we are justified in calling them earlier in time—the parent samples
of the later ones. Nor is our assumption unsupported, for we shall
subsequently find that the cult of Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl was carried
by the Toltecs in their distant peregrinations. These slabs, therefore,
and the pillars we found in the village, acquire a paramount importance
in establishing the affiliation of Toltec settlements in Tabasco,
Yucatan, and other places, furnishing us with further data in regard
to certain monuments at Palenque, the steles of Tikal, and the massive
monolith idols of Copan.
I next attacked the terraced court fronting the palace towards the
Path of Death, and the amount of constructions and substructures we
came upon is almost beyond belief: inclined stuccoed walls crossing
each other in all directions, flights of steps leading to terraces
within the pyramid, ornaments, pottery, and detritus; so much so that
the pyramid might not improperly be called a necropolis, in which the
living had their dwellings.
In a word, our campaign at Teotihuacan was as successful as our
campaign at Tula. We were attended by the same good fortune, and the
reader whom such things may interest will find a bas-relief of both
Toltec palaces, and of one of the tombstones, in the Trocadéro. The
other I offered, as in duty bound, to the Mexican Government, which
allowed it to remain in the village for eighteen months, when Mr.
Cumplido, the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_, had it brought to
Mexico, and sold it to the Museum for £10.
From what has been said it will be seen that the monuments at
Teotihuacan were partly standing at the time of the Conquest.
Our next investigations will take us to the Sierra.
[Illustration: TOLTEC SEPULCHRAL STONE, TEOTIHUACAN.]
[Illustration: RUINS OF TLALMANALCO.]