THE BEAU RELIEF.
Beau Relief in Stucco.
Some four hundred yards south of the Palace is a pyramid, only partly artificial if we may credit Dupaix, and rising with a steep slope of one hundred feet from the bank of the stream according to Stephens, on which is a small building, No. 3 of the plan, which we may call, with Waldeck, the Temple of the Beau Relief. This edifice was found by later visitors in an advanced state of ruin, and Catherwood's drawings of it are much less satisfactory than in the case of other Palenque ruins; but both Dupaix and Waldeck found it in a tolerably good state of preservation, and were enabled to sketch and describe its principal features. This temple measured eighteen by twenty feet, apparently fronting the east, and is twenty-five feet high. It presents the peculiarity of an apartment in the pyramid, immediately under the upper rooms. The cut gives ground plans—No. 1 of the upper, and No. 2 of the lower rooms. The stairway which afforded communication between the two, is also shown. Catherwood's drawing, however, represents the upper and lower apartments as alike in everything but height. On the rear, or western, wall, at a, was the Beau Relief in stucco, which gives a name to the temple, the finest specimen of stucco work in America, shown in the accompanying cut. It was sketched by Castañeda and Waldeck, in whose drawings some differences of detail appear. At the time of Stephens' visit only the lower portions remained for study; yet he pronounced this "superior in execution to any other stucco relief in Palenque." At the time of Charnay's visit the last vestige of this beautiful relic had disappeared. Waldeck speaks of a tomb found in connection with this pyramid, which he had no time to explore, having made the discovery just before leaving the ruins.[VI-34]
Temple of the Cross.
TEMPLE OF THE CROSS.
Standing about one hundred and fifty yards a little south of east from the Palace, and on the opposite bank of the stream Otolum, is the building No. 4 of the plan, known as the Temple of the Cross, standing on a pyramid which measures one hundred and thirty-four feet on the slope. Mr Stephens locates this temple several hundred feet further south than I have placed it on the plan. Charnay describes the pyramid as partly natural but faced with stone. The temple is fifty feet long, thirty-one feet wide, and about forty feet high. The cut shows the front, or southern elevation. The construction of the lower portion is precisely like that of the other buildings which have been described. The two lateral piers were covered with hieroglyphics, and the central ones bore human figures, all in stucco. The lower slope of the roof was also covered with stucco decorations, among which were fragments of a head and two bodies, pronounced by Stephens to approach the Greek models in justness of proportion and symmetry. On the top, the roof formed a platform thirty-five feet long and about three feet wide, which supported the peculiar two-storied structure shown in the preceding cut, fifteen feet and ten inches high. This is a kind of frame, or open lattice, of stone blocks covered with a great variety of stucco ornaments. A layer of projecting flat stones caps the whole, and from the summit, one hundred feet perhaps above the ground, a magnificent view is afforded, which stretches over the whole forest-covered plain to Laguna de Terminos and the Mexican gulf. This superstructure, like some that I have described at Uxmal and elsewhere in Yucatan, would seem to have been added to the temple solely to give it a more imposing appearance. It could hardly have served as an observatory, since there are no facilities for mounting to the summit.[VI-35]