Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/250

212 were mummies in niches elaborately clothed and plumed, with gold and silver ornaments on the dresses of fine cotton cloth. The patterns, woven into the cloth and coloured, are birds striking the heads of lizards or seizing fish. In the centre there is a structure sixteen feet square and twelve high, with entrances at each end, leading to a space ten feet by five, with a series of platforms on either side. Here, no doubt, the funeral rites were performed.

The two most remarkable structures among the ruins are called palaces by Rivero, and factories by Squier. They are surrounded by exterior walls of adobes on foundations of stone and clay, five feet thick and thirty in height. One factory is 500 yards by 400. An entrance leads to an open square with a reservoir in the centre, faced with stone, sixty feet long by forty. Round the square there are twenty-two recesses, probably shops opening upon it, and at one end a terrace with three rooms leading from it. This square, with its reservoir, appears to have been the market-place. There are six minor courts, and streets or passages with many rooms opening upon them. Of these rooms there are no less than 111, with walls twelve feet high and high-pitched roofs. The objects of these extraordinary buildings were very puzzling. They were certainly not palaces, as Rivero supposed. Squier's conjecture is no doubt the correct one. They were busy factories, hives of industry. Here were the workers in gold, silver and bronze, the designers, the dyers, the potters, and the weavers.