MEDALLION IN PASSAGE OF INNER WING.
TEMPLE OF INSCRIPTIONS, PALENQUE.
CHAPTER XIV.
PALENQUE. TEMPLES.
Palenque a Holy City—Bas-reliefs—Rain and Fever—A Grateful Cook—Temple of Inscriptions—Temple of the Sun—Temple of the Cross No. 1—Temple of the Cross No. 2—Altars—Mouldings and Photographs—Fire—Explorations—Fallen Houses—The Age of Trees in Connection with the Ruins—Recapitulation.
Some writers have called Palenque a capital, and the great edifice known as the palace a royal mansion, but they have erred, for if there was a royal palace it was not the one we have described. Like Teotihuacan, Izamal, and Cozumel, Palenque was a holy place, an important religious centre, a city which was resorted to as a place of pilgrimage, teeming with shrines and temples, a vast and much-sought burial-place. In this and in no other way can be explained the silence surrounding this great city, which was probably peopled by a floating population dispersed at the first alarm of the Conquest.