The larger of the two teocallis is dedicated to the Sun, has a base of about 640 feet, and is about 170 feet high. The other, dedicated to the Moon, is rather smaller.
These monuments were called teocallis, not because they were pyramids, but because they were temples; “Teocalli” means “god’s house”—(teotl, god, calli, house), a name which the traveller hears explained for the first time with some wonder; and Humboldt cannot help adverting to its curious correspondence with θεου καλια, dei cella. Another odd coincidence is found in the Aztec name for their priests, papahua, the root of which papa, (the hua, is merely a termination). In the Old World the word Papa, Pope, or Priest, was connected with the idea of father or grandfather, but the Aztec word has no such origin.
When the Aztecs abandoned their temples, and began to build Christian churches, they called them also “teocallis,” and perhaps do so to this day.
The heavy tropical rains have to a great extent broken the sharpness of the outline of these structures, and brought them more nearly to the shape of real pyramids than they were originally; but, as we climbed up their sides, we could trace the terraces without any difficulty, and even flights of steps.
The pyramids consist of an outer casing of hewn stone, faced and covered with smooth stucco, which has resisted the effects of time and bad usage in a wonderful manner. Inside this casing were adobes, stones, clay, and mortar, as one may see in places where the exterior has been damaged, and by creeping into the small passage which leads into the