Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/588

572: ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE. Pakt hi. If, however, the plan is original, the style of ornamentation is still more so. The walls slope outwards, which is not the case in any- other known building. The panels are filled with frets and forms such as are only found in Mexico, and are entirely unlike anything found elsewhere ; and the whole building is such that, if it stood alone, or all Mexican buildings were like it, we should at once be obliged to admit that the style was entirely original, and formed without any connection with the older world. Its use is said to be sepulchral, and there are underground chambers which would countenance that belief, according to our views. In hot climates, however, subterranean apartments are appro- 997. View of the I'alace at Mitla. (From " Smitlisuiiiau (Joiiliibutioiis to Kuowleclge, vol. ix.) priate rather to the living, and are, when met with, generally the best in the house ; so that, without some more evidence, it would appear rather to be a palace, which the arrangement of its internal chambers and its whole appearance would more certainly indicate. Its age is not known, but in the Aztec ])aintings executed immediately before, and in some instances subsequently to, the conquest, the same forms and the same style of decoration constantly appear. This is not con- clusive, for the same architectural forms may in this country have ])revailed throughout, for anything we know; but judging by the rules of European criticism, the building does not date from long befoio the time of the conquest. Whenever a stable government is established in that unhap]iy