The pyramid was composed of blocks of hewn stone, so accurately fitted together as hardly to show the joints, and the carving goes on without interruption from one block to another. Some of these blocks are eight feet long, and nearly three feet wide. They were laid together without mortar, and indeed, from the construction of the building, none was required.
The first storey is about sixteen feet high, including the plinth at the bottom. Above the plinth comes a sculptured group of figures, which is repeated in panels all round the pyramid, twice on each side. Each panel occupies a space thirty feet long by ten in height, and the bas-reliefs project three or four inches.
There is a chief, dressed in a girdle, and with a head-dress of feathers just like those of the Red Indians of the north. Below the girdle he terminates in a scroll. In the middle of the group is what may perhaps be a palm-tree, with a rabbit at its foot. Close to the tree, and reaching nearly to the same height, is a figure with a crocodile’s head wearing a crown, and with drapery in parallel lines, like the wings of the creatures in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Indeed this may very likely be a conventional representation of the robes of feather-work so characteristic of Mexico.