Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/592

576 576 ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE. Part HI. Sometimes pillars are used, and the wooden construction is carried even lower down, though mixed in that case with parts of essentially lithic form. Barring the monstrosity of the carvings, there is often, as in the palace at Zayi / (Woodcut No. 1001), a degree of elegance in the design by no means to be despised, more especially when, as in this instance, the build- ing rises in a pyramidal form in three terraces, the one within and above the other, the lowest, as shown in the plan (Woodcut No. 1002), being 260 ft. in length, by 110 ft. in width. This, though far from being the largest of tliese palaces, is one of the most remarkable, as its terraces, instead of being mere flights of steps, all present architectural fa9ades, rising one above the other. The upper and central tier may possibly have been a seven-ceiied 1000. Elevation of Building at Chunjuju. (From a Draw ing by F. Catherwobd.) T^.^- cE^^i*i im^ m^:i ^^^Kki^^^»'^^mm m. 1001. Elevation of part of Palace at Zayi. (From a Drawing by F. Catherwood.) temple, and the lower apartments appropriated to the priests, but it is more probable that they were all palaces, the residences of temporal chiefs, inasmuch as at Uxmal a pyramidal temple is attached to the building called the Casa del Gubernador, which is extremely similar