The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan

by Channing Arnold; Frederick J. Tabor Frost

A comparison of these extraordinary carvings shows great similarity in the pose and dress of the figures; but in that of the Temple of the Sun the figures stand on crouching fantastic forms, and between them is a rectangular table curiously adorned and resting on two more crouching figures. From this table project two crossed lances, the point of intersection being hidden by a grotesque face which Mayan students have agreed to regard as a symbol of the Sun. The main figures would seem to be priests, or perhaps a priest and his assistant. They hold in their hands what look like human figures for sacrifice. The key to these wonderful bas-reliefs lies in the glyphs. Professor Forstemann would have us believe that these are but a compilation of month and day signs, that, in fact, the tablets are much like those almanacks which a country grocer presents to his customers, an attractive picture in the middle, surrounded by the days of the month. We do not believe it, we never shall be able to believe it; and in the chapter on the glyphs we shall attempt to show that the Professor has been run away with by his own theories. It is far more likely that these wonderful calculiform letters enshrine a dedicatory prayer to the presiding deity of the temple, with perhaps a full description of the god and his attributes.

On the piers at each side of the temple are stone tablets carved in bas-relief each with a figure, of which we reproduce Stephens's drawing. They undoubtedly represent priests in full ceremonial dress. The drawings form their own commentary. Noteworthy in the second is the appearance of fishes in the headdress, which appears to be composed of a bird holding a fish. Some fifteen hundred feet to the south of these temples is yet another pyramid crowned by a building 20 feet long and 80 feet deep, which Stephens found in almost complete ruin. The most remarkable feature of it is a bas-relief which once represented a couch, formed of a two-headed jaguar, some portions of the figure once seated still remaining. Of this couch design we shall have more to say when we come to our arguments as to the origin of Mayan architecture.

BAS-RELIEF ON PIER OF TEMPLE, PALENQUE.

Near the Temple of the Sun, Stephens found the only statue so far discovered at Palenque. It is 10 feet 6 inches high, 2 feet 6 inches of which is in the ground, and the sides are rounded while the back is of rough stone. Many have been the visitors to Palenque during the sixty-eight years which have elapsed since Stephens explored it, but little or nothing has been discovered which would justify a reversal of that famous archæologist's finding, viz.: that the stories of the vast area of the ruins are mere fairy tales, and that in the buildings here briefly described we have the relics of the only important stone structures of a once great and powerful city. That it was desolate at the time of the Conquest is more than likely, for it is absolutely certain that Cortes in his march to Honduras passed within less than thirty miles of its site; and had it then been in that full zenith of power which the splendour of its buildings irresistibly suggests it once enjoyed, it is incredible that the Conqueror of Mexico should not have met its cacique in a pitched battle.

Between seventy and eighty miles to the E.S.E. of the ruins of Palenque, on the south-western bank of the Usumacinta, are the ruins of Menché. Some attempts have been made in recent years to identify this with that Phantom City of which the cura of Santa Cruz del Quiche gave Stephens in 1839 an entrancing account. He (the cura) when young "had with much labour climbed to the naked summit of the sierra from which, at a height of ten or twelve thousand feet, he looked over an immense plain extending to Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw at a great distance a large city spread over a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun." Apart from the fact that the excellent padre had probably allowed his imagination to run riot, there is really no ground for aggrandising Menché at the expense of the neighbouring Palenque, which was once undoubtedly the larger city. This portion of the Usumacinta lies within the tribal area of the Lacandone Indians, who still maintain their independence, and thus it is quite possible that the city which is to-day represented by the ruins, was inhabited to a much later date than the cities of Yucatan. M. Charnay visited the ruins in 1880, and endeavoured to saddle them with the name "Lorillard City," in complimentary allusion to Mr. Lorillard, the chocolate millionaire who had defrayed the chief cost of the French archæologist's tour. The honour of their discovery really belongs to that earnest and unselfish archæologist Mr. Maudslay.

The ruins consist of temples and palaces of a construction very similar to all those buildings which are found at Palenque and around; but Charnay says they are smaller and less richly decorated than those at Palenque. They seem for some reason to have suffered severely from weather-wear, for all trace of outer decoration is gone. The chief ruin is that of a palace built on a high pyramid in six blocks, forming a rectangle. Such is the account M. Charnay gives of it, but he states that though the outline can be traced, the whole of the building is now in complete ruin. About 150 yards from the river on a pyramid about 120 feet high is a building 68 feet long and about 20 feet deep, which has three doorways. Its interior is remarkable only for the fact that it contained a huge stone idol which is unique of its kind. M. Charnay describes it as "a figure sitting crosslegged, the hands resting on the knees. The attitude is placid and dignified like a Buddha statue; the face, now mutilated, is crowned by an enormous headdress of peculiar style, presenting a fantastic head with a diadem and medallion topped by feathers ... the dress consists of a rich cape embroidered with pearls, a medallion on each shoulder and in front, recalling Roman decorations. The same ornamentation is seen on the lower part of the body, having a much larger medallion and fringed maxtli. The arms are covered with heavy bracelets." Around the idol M. Charnay found clay incense-burners moulded into face forms such as have been unearthed again and again on the Usumacinta and in Guatemala and which have proved to be in actual daily use to-day in the temple of the Lacandone Indians. The walls of this temple M. Charnay describes as being blackened, doubtless from the smoke of offerings. Above the cornice of the buildings is a stone lattice-work 14 feet high almost identical in design with that which we have described in our account of the House of the Pigeons of Uxmal.

Close to this temple is a building 65 feet long by 52 deep. To the south-west of this on another pyramid is a second temple, noteworthy for the carved lintels. These represent scenes of sacrifice like those described at Palenque; but there is more animation in the figures of the second one, which represents a kneeling priest passing a rope through his tongue, while over him stands another ecclesiastic, in his hands the crozier-like wand of office which again and again occurs in Mayan ceremonial carvings. These lintels, which were discovered by Mr. Maudslay, were by him with infinite trouble carried to the coast and shipped to England, and are now in the British Museum among other exhibits of which he has been the generous donor.

This passing of a rope through the tongue represents a form of worship of which Sahagun (Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España) writes:—"They pierced a hole with a sharp itzli knife through the middle of the tongue and passed a number of twigs, according to the degree of devotion of the performer. These twigs were sometimes fastened the one to the other and pulled through the tongue like a long cord." Torquemada also speaks of these penances as occurring in Mexico: "The priests of Quetzalcoatl provided themselves with sticks two feet long and the size of their fist, and with them they repaired to the main temple, where they fasted five days. Then carpenters and tool-workers were brought, who were required to fast the same number of days, at the end of which time they were given food within the precincts of the temple. The former worked the sticks to the required size while the tool-makers made knives with which they cut the priests' tongues. More prayers followed, when all the priests prepared for the sacrifice, the elders giving the example by passing through their tongues four or five hundred twigs, followed by such among the young who had sufficient courage to imitate them. But the pain was so sharp that few went through the whole number; for although the first twigs were thinned out, they became stouter each time, until they attained the size of a thumb, sometimes twice as much."