Saturday, March 17, 2007

Details from "angel" area






The intricate decoration is just beautiful. I have no idea what it means. The area appears to be the entrance to a sacred space in the pyramid. The doorway is surrounded by giant teeth so it looks like you might be walking into the jaws of a giant creature. There are faces of old people carved into the design. And there are other people represented. The part below the winged figures looks to me like a stylized tree. The archaeologists put glass doors/windows in the spaces, so you can't see what's inside. And the area is roped off so you can't climb up the little stairs to see. So I don't know how big the room is, but there is at least one, and maybe more rooms. The ledge is not all that wide, so you can't really get a good picture of the whole area. Or, at least, I couldn't with the camera we have. So it's hard to get a good idea of what you're looking at from these pictures. This section is about halfway up the pyramid just to the left of the main stairway. The room (or rooms) are carved back into the pyramid itself (or maybe were built into it at the time of construction). And the facade of the area is elaborately decorated in plaster. It was probably all painted when new.

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