Sculptured Tablet in the Palace.—Fig. 1.
Sculptured Tablet in the Palace.—Fig. 2.
SCULPTURED TABLET.
The building E has the interior walls of its two northern apartments decorated with painted and stucco figures in a very mutilated condition. In the wall of one of them, at the point p, is fixed an elliptical stone tablet, three feet wide and four feet high, the surface of which is covered by the sculptured device shown in the cut. With the exception of the figures in the court 1, already mentioned, this is the only instance of stone-carving in the Palace. It is cut in low relief, and is surrounded by an ornamental border of stucco. A table consisting of a plain rectangular stone slab resting on four blocks which served as legs, stood formerly on the pavement immediately under the sculptured tablet. Tables of varying dimensions, but of like construction, were found in several apartments of the Palace and its subterranean galleries, as shown in the plan at v, v, v. They are called tables, beds, or altars, by different writers. Waldeck says that this one was of green jasper; and Del Rio, that its edges and legs were sculptured, one of the latter having been carried away by him and sent to Spain. The first cut which I have given is taken from Waldeck's drawing. The second cut, representing a portion of the same tablet, taken from Catherwood's plate, for Morelet's Travels, differs slightly in some respects—notably in the ornament suspended from the neck, represented by one artist as a face, and by the other as a cross. Of the subject Mr Stephens says: "The principal figure sits cross-legged on a couch ornamented with two leopards' heads; the attitude is easy, the physiognomy the same as that of the other personages, and the expression calm and benevolent. The figure wears around its neck a necklace of pearls, to which is suspended a small medallion containing a face; perhaps intended as an image of the sun. Like every other subject of sculpture we had seen in the country, the personage had earrings, bracelets on the wrists, and a girdle round the loins. The head-dress differs from most of the others at Palenque in that it wants the plumes of feathers.... The other figure, which seems that of a woman, is sitting cross-legged on the ground, richly dressed, and apparently in the act of making an offering. In this supposed offering is seen a plume of feathers, in which the headdress of the principal person is deficient." Waldeck deems the left-hand figure to be black, and recognizes in the profile an Ethiopian type. Del Rio sees in the subject homage paid to a river god; and Galindo believes the object offered to be a human head. Somebody imagines that the two animal heads are those of the seal.[VI-29]
The stucco ornaments on the walls of the building F seem to have been richer and more numerous than elsewhere, but were found in a very dilapidated condition. In the room q, Stephens found traces of a stone tablet in the wall, and he also gives a sketch of a stucco bas-relief from the side of a doorway, representing a standing human figure in a very damaged state. A peculiar stucco ornament sketched by Castañeda is probably from the same room, and is perhaps identical with what Waldeck describes as a sanctuary with two birds perched on an elephant's head, the latter, however, not appearing in the drawing.[VI-30]