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In Mexico pyramids were found everywhere. Cortez, in a letter to Charles
V., states that he counted four hundred of them at Cholula. Their
temples were on those "high-places." The most ancient pyramids in Mexico
are at Teotihuacan, eight leagues from the city of Mexico; the two
largest were dedicated to the sun and moon respectively, each built of
cut stone, with a level area at the summit, and four stages leading up
to it. The larger one is 680 feet square at the base, about 200 feet
high, and covers an area of eleven acres. The Pyramid of Cholula,
measured by Humboldt, is 160 feet high, 1400 feet square at the base,
and covers forty five acres! The great pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, is 746
feet square, 450 feet high, and covers between twelve and thirteen
acres. So that it appears that the base of the Teotihuacan structure is
nearly as large as that of Cheops, while that of Cholula covers nearly
four times as much space. The Cheops pyramid, however, exceeds very much
in height both the American structures.
Senor Garcia y Cubas thinks the pyramids of Teotihuacan (Mexico) were
built for the same purpose as those of Egypt. He considers the analogy
established in eleven particulars, as follows: 1, the site chosen is the
same; 2, the structures are orientated with slight variation; 3, the
line through the centres of the structures is in the astronomical
meridian; 4, the construction in grades and steps is the same; 5, in
both cases the larger pyramids are dedicated to the sun; 6, the Nile has
"a valley of the dead," as in Teotihuacan there is "a street of the
dead;" 7, some monuments in each class have the nature of
fortifications; 8, the smaller mounds are of the same nature and for the
same purpose; 9, both pyramids have a small mound joined to one of their
faces; 10, the openings discovered in the Pyramid of the Moon are also
found in some Egyptian pyramids; 11, the interior arrangements of the
pyramids are analogous.
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