Palenque Altar for burning Copal.
MISCELLANEOUS RELICS.
A few miscellaneous relics, found by visitors at different points in connection with the ruins of Palenque, and more or less fully described, remain to be noticed. Del Rio made an excavation under the pavement of the central chamber in the Temple of the Cross, and says: "at about half a yard deep, I found a small round earthen vessel, about one foot in diameter, fitted horizontally with a mixture of lime to another of the same quality and dimensions; these were removed, and the digging being continued, a quarter of a yard beneath, we discovered a circular stone, of rather larger diameter than the first articles, and on removing this from its position, a cylindrical cavity presented itself, about a foot wide and the third of a foot deep, containing a flint lance, two small conical pyramids with the figure of a heart in dark crystallized stone; ... there were also two small earthen jars or ewers with covers containing small stones and a ball of vermilion.... The situation of the subterranean depository coincides with the centre of the oratory, and in each of the inner angles, near the entrance, is a cavity like the one before described," containing two little jars. The same author also speaks of burnt bricks which seem to have been used sparingly.[VI-49] Waldeck, having made a similar excavation in what he calls the temple of the Palace, perhaps the building C, found a gallery containing hewn blocks of stone, and earthen cups and vases with many little earthen balls of different colors. He also speaks of a fine fragment of terra cotta which he found in the court 1 where he also discovered just before leaving Palenque the entrance to other galleries of the pyramid. Waldeck also gives drawings of two images of human form in terra cotta, from Dr Corroy's collection; also a face, or mask, in stucco from the cornice of the Temple of Death, whatever that building may have been.[VI-50] Galindo found stones apparently for grinding maize, similar to the Mexican metate; also artificially shaped pebbles, similar, as he says, to those used by the modern Lacandones but smaller. Both Galindo and Dupaix speak of a circular granite stone, like a mill-stone, six feet in diameter and one foot thick, found on the side or at the foot of the Palace pyramid. Dupaix found at a distance of a league westward from the ruins, a square pillar fourteen feet in circumference, and about the same in height, with two short round pillars standing at its eastern foot. He also speaks of finding many small altars probably used originally for burning copal. One of them, four feet in circumference and sixteen inches high, is represented in the preceding cut.[VI-51] At the sale of a collection of antiquities in London, 1859, two of the objects sold are, erroneously in all probability, mentioned as relics from Palenque; one was "a mask, with open mouth, in hard red stone, the concave surface sculptured with a sitting figure of a Mexican chief, surrounded by various emblems," price thirteen pounds; the other, "a Mexican deity, with grotesque human face sculptured out of a very large and massive piece of greenstone," price twenty-five pounds. Mr Davis talks about "an idol of pure gold about six inches long."[VI-52] The two copper or bronze medals which I have already noticed as probably not authentic relics in my account of Guatemalan antiquities, have been considered by various writers, following Ordoñez without any apparent reason, as belonging to Palenque. The speculations to which they have given rise, and their attempted interpretations are splendid specimens of the trash, pure and simple, which has been written in unlimited quantities about primitive America.[VI-53]
RUINS OF OCOCINGO.
Some thirty-five or forty miles southward from Palenque, on another of the parallel streams which unite to form a branch of the Usumacinta, is another important group of ruins, which may be called Ococingo, from the name of a modern village, five or six miles distant toward the west. The same traditions that tell us of Votan's great Maya empire, and of Xibalba, allude also somewhat vaguely to another great capital called Tulhá. Juarros, perhaps following Ordoñez, applied this name to the ruins of Ococingo, and most authors have followed him in this respect. I need not say, however, that the only authority for this use of the name is the traditional existence in the shadowy past, of a Tulhá in this region. The natives call the ruins Tonila, which in the Tzendal tongue signifies 'stone houses.' Notwithstanding the importance of the ruins, very little is known of them. Stephens and Catherwood spent about half a day here just before their visit to Palenque; and Dupaix and Castañeda also visited this point. The accounts by these explorers are about all there is extant on the subject, but they are necessarily brief, and unfortunately neither in text nor drawings do they agree at all with each other. Both Waldeck and Brasseur visited Ococingo, but neither gives any description of the monuments.[VI-54]
RUINS OF OCOCINGO.
At the village of Ococingo Stephens noticed two sculptured figures brought from the ruins, which he pronounced "somewhat in the same style as those at Copan." Castañeda also saw and sketched here two tablets, which may be the same. One of them measured forty-five by thirty-six by four inches, was of a grayish stone, and contained a single human figure, whose arms were bound behind the back with what resembles a modern rope. The other measuring thirty-six by twenty-seven inches, was of a yellow stone, and contained a standing and a squatting figure, surrounded by a border in which hieroglyphics appear. On the way from the village, Stephens noticed two well-carved figures lying on the ground; while Dupaix found several of them thrown down and broken, two of which were sketched. One of them represents a human bust with arms crossed on the breast, the lower portion of which seems to be a kind of tenon originally fixed in the ground; the other bears a slight resemblance to the only statue found at Palenque. This statue must have been removed by Dupaix, since it was afterwards seen by Waldeck in Vera Cruz. Both statues had lost their heads.[VI-55]
