Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/591

Rh Bk. II. Ch. II. BUILDING AT CHUNJUJU. 575 with large hieroglyphical tablets, whose decipherment, were it possible, would probably reveal to us much of the Iiistory of these buildings. The roof is formed by approacliing courses of stone meeting at the summit, and following the same outline externally, with curious ])rojections on the outside, like dormer windows, but meant appar- ently either for ornament or as pedestals for small idols, or for some similar purpose. The other temples found in Yucatan differ but little from this one, except in size, and, architecturally speaking, are less interesting than the palaces — the splendor of the temple consisting in the size of its pyramid, to which the sui)erstructure is only the crowning member ; in the palace, on the other hand, the pyramid is entirely subordinate to the building it supports, forming merely an appropriate and con- venient pedestal, just sufficient to give it a proper degree of architec- tural effect. In speaking of the palaces it would be most important, and add very much to the interest of the description, if some classification could be made as to their relative age. The absence of all traces of history makes this extremely difficult, and the only mode that sug- o-ests itself is to assume that those buildings which show the greatest similarity to wooden construction in tht^'ir details are the oldest, and tliat those in which this peculiarity cannot be traced are the more modern. This at least is certainly the case in all other countries of the world where timlier fit for building purposes can be procured ; there men inevitably use the lighter and more easily worked vegetable material long before they venture on the more durable but far more expensive mineral substance which ultimately supersedes it to so great an extent. Even in Egypt, in the age of the pyramid-builders, the ornamental architecture is coi)ied in. all its details from wooden constructions. In Greece, when the art reached its second stage, the base is essentially stone, and the upi^er pai't only copied in stone from the earlier wooden forms: and so it was apparently in Mexico; the lower part of the buildings is essentially massive stone-work ; the up|)er part is copied from forms and carvings that must originally have been executed in wood, and are now repeated in stone. The following woodcut, for instance, represents in its simplest form what is repeated in almost all these buildings — a stone basement with square doorways, but without vindows, surmounted by a super- structure evidently a direct copy of wood-work, and forming part of the construction of the roof. In most cases in Yucatan the superstructure is elaborately carved with masks, sci'olls, and carvings similar to those seen on the prows of the war-boats, or in the Morais or burying-places of the Polynesian islanders.