The painting is accompanied by hieroglyphics, which an explorer in 1875, Dr. Le Plongeon, succeeded in deciphering far enough to learn that the tomb of Chaak Mool was to be found at a place some four hundred yards from the palace. He at once set about excavations at this spot. At first were found several bas-reliefs representing cats and birds of prey; about twenty feet lower down was an urn of stone containing ashes, and last of all the statue of a man reclining upon a slab of stone. This statue is now in the National Museum of Mexico, under the title of Chaak Mool, as if it were the image made by order of the devoted Kinich Katmò; but the type of the face, the costume, head-dress, and sandals are altogether different from the usual Yucatan models, and moreover other little Chaak Mools have been found in different parts of Mexico, so that the wise are led to suppose that it represents some unknown divinity rather than a king of Yucatan.
STATUE OF CHAAK MOOL.
The Spaniards found throughout Yucatan roads made for the convenience of travellers, probably to the religious centres of the country. Some of these roads are calzadas, like those of which traces exist in many parts of Mexico, dating far beyond the Spaniards. The remains of one of these were used in building the modern city of Merida in Yucatan. This highway measured from between seven and eight yards in width; it was made of blocks of stone covered with mortar, and a layer of cement about two inches thick. Solid bridges of masonry spanned the rivers of Mexico and Yucatan, of which the massive piers have been seen standing during the last century.
Such are the monuments of the Mayan people, of whom not many facts are to be disentangled from the early legends. Like the traditions of the Mexican tribes, the Mayas tell of a supernatural being, who came from the other side of the Caribbean seas, from a land of shadows. His name was Votan, in the Mayan tradition. He found a people in the extreme of barbarism living in caves, feeding upon the bloody flesh of animals they killed in hunting; he taught them many things, so that by his example, and for generations after he left them by his precepts, they advanced to high civilization. According to his instructions, the only sacrifices offered to the gods were the flowers and incense, sometimes birds and animals. Votan is described as a great warrior, leading his people to one triumph after another. Votan, it would seem, had a companion and disciple called Zamna, to whom also the inhabitants of Yucatan ascribe their ancient progress. It was he, they say, who invented hieroglyphics, and he was the first to attach names to men and things. He was buried, according to the account of the natives, at Izamal, one of the sacred towns of Yucatan, beneath three different pyramids. Under one is his right hand, the head under another, and the heart is beneath the third. A huge head carved in stone has been found at Izamal, which perhaps represents the Prophet Zamna.
ZAMNA.
The Mayas used copper and gold. Their weapons were slings, spears, and arrows with points made of obsidian or bone. Their warriors wore armor of well-padded cotton, their shields were round and decorated with feathers, or the skins of animals. They made boats by hollowing out the trunks of trees, large enough to hold fifty people, which they guided with great skill. Votan was regarded as a god after his death, like Quetzalcoatl, with the Toltecs. Fierce wars waged between votaries of the two as time went on. The Mayan legends and the few manuscripts preserved tell of nothing but wars and conquests, struggles and defeats. The confederation invaded by other tribes who triumphed over it declined. Their religion deteriorated, as the traditions of Votan and his precepts faded away, and the people returned to the custom of human sacrifice, as bloody and terrible with them as with the other American races.
In their monuments we can trace these evidences of their civilization; they are remarkable for number and dimension, and the taste and skill shown in their ornamentation implies a condition above that of savage tribes warring against each other to defend the necessities of mere existence.