Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/167

Rh been just on the fall of the hill at each end of the house. Numerous doorways opened on to a flight of stone steps on the south side. A house similar in plan, but somewhat smaller, stood on the southern side of the Plaza and faced north, and there were usually the remains of some smaller houses facing inwards on the east and west sides of the Plazas. Almost equidistant between the north and south houses, in the centre of each Plaza, stood what I take to be the remains of a temple, facing northwards, and between this and the northern house stood an altar which was apparently a copy in miniature of the foundation of the temple.

I took some measurements of the buildings in the Plaza on the top of the western spur. The arrangement differed somewhat from that of the other groups, the Plaza being, so to speak, double and having no houses along the sides, or it may be that the houses were small and had left no trace of their previous existence. The house No. 1 (see plan, Group E) was by far the largest, measuring 156 feet 7 inches in length and 21 feet 6 inches in breadth. It was approached by a flight of steps divided into six divisions by projecting buttresses. Eight masonry piers supported the roof in front, the wall being continuous at the sides and back of the house. The wall is still standing in some parts to the height of 6 feet. A raised bench 6 feet 6 inches in width runs along the back and sides of the house. Such a building must necessarily have been roofed with wood; and I may add that nowhere did I find any traces of stones which could have been used for purposes of roofing.

A ground-plan and elevation of the building, which I take to be a temple, is also given in the Plate. Two stairways with very narrow steps rise between buttresses on both north and south sides of the building and a single stairway on the east and west; but the approach is from the north side only, and the platform round the temple on the other three sides is little more than a foot wide. The height of this platform from the ground is 10 feet 10 inches. The temple has three doorways on the north side, and the walls are still standing to the height of 5 feet. The temple marked No. 2 in Group E faced towards the south. All the other temples are built on the same plan, but differ in size, some being considerably larger than that shown in the plan.

The altars were apparently miniature copies of the foundations of the temples, with steps only 3 or 4 inches in height and width; but no trace of a miniature house could be seen on the top of them. The masonry is all of the same description: irregular flat stones 2 to 5 inches thick and straight at one edge, placed over one another and faced with plaster. The stones may have been found already apart from one another, or may