Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/597

Rh Bk. II. Ch. III. HISTORICAL NOTICE. 581 the openings — a form invented on jiurpose to diminish the necessary size of the lintel. There are two discharging arches so constructed at Uxmal, but, so far as is known, none anywhere else ; and no single opening of that class in the whole architectural province of Mexico. The roofs and upper parts of the larger openings, on the contrary, almost universally slope in that country. In Peru the roofs are always flat, or domical, and the sides of the openings always straight- lined. These remarks ought perhaps, in strictness, to be applied to the architecture of the Incas alone — the only one Avith which we have hitherto been made acquainted. Recently, however it has dawned 1007. Kuined Gateway at Tia Huanacu. (From a Photograph.) upon US, that before the time of Manco Capac the regions of Peru about the Lake Titicaca were inhabited by a race of Aymaras, who have left traces of their art in this region. Some illustrations of the remains of Tia Huanacu, at the southern end of Lake Titicaca, have reached this country, and from them we gather that the style is es- sentially different from that of the Incas. The most characteristic distinction being that in the Aymara style all the jambs of the doors are perpendicular, and all the angles right angles. In the Inca style, on the contrary, the jambs are almost all universally sloping, and rectangular forms are by no means common. At Tia Huanacu there are two doorways, each cut out of a single block of hard volcanic stone. That shown in Woodcut No. 1007 measures 10 ft. in height and 13 ft. 3 in. across the top; or rather did before it was broken in two, apparently by an earthquake shock.