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 GROUND PLAN OF PRINCIPAL RUINS OF TEOTIHUACAN. 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. 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.

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.

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

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.