Part I.] ORIGIN OF MEXICAN CIVILIZATION. 407

whose style of architecture bears most resemblanceto that of the remarkable monuments of Chiapaand Yucatan ? The points of resemblance will,probably, be found neither numerous nor decisive.There is, indeed, some analogy both to the Egyp­ tian and Asiatic style of architecture in the pyram-idal, terrace-formed bases on which the buildingsrepose, resembling, also, the Toltec and Mexican teocalli. A similar care, also, is observed in thepeople of both hemispheres, to adjust the positionof their buildings by the cardinal points. Thewalls in both are covered with figures and hiero-glyphics, which, on the American, as on the Egyp­ tian , may be designed, perhaps, to record the lawsand historical annals of the nation. These figures,as well as the buildings themselves, are found tohave been stained with various dyes, principallyvermilion ; 81 a favorite color with the Egyptians,also, who painted their colossal statues and templesof granite . 82 Notwithstanding these points of sim-ilarity, the Palenque architecture has little to remindus of the Egyptian , or of the Oriental. It is, indeed,more conformable, in the perpendicular elevation of

81 Waldeck, Atlas Pittoresque, 82 Description de l’Egypte, An-p. 73. tiq., tom. II. cap. 9, sec. 4.

The fortress of Xochicalco was The huge image of the Sphinxalso colored with a red paint; was originally colored red. (Clarke’s(Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. I. p. Travels, vol. V. p. 202.) Indeed,20;) and a cement of the same many of the edifices, as well ascolor covered the Toltec pyramid statues, of ancient Greece , also,at Teotihuacan , according to Mr. still exhibit traces of having beenBullock, Six Months in Mexico , painted,vol. II. p. 143.