[1056] “Palenque et autres lieux circonvoisins,” in Dupaix, i. 2d div. 67 (in English in Literary Gazette, London, 1831, no. 769, and in Lond. Geog. Soc. Journal, iii. 60). Cf. Bull. de la Soc. de Géog. de Paris, 1832. He is overenthusiastic, as Bandelier thinks (Amer. Ant. Soc. Proc., n. s., i. p. 111).
[1057] The report by Angrand, which induced this purchase, is in the work as published.
[1058] He had described them in his Hist. Nat. Civ., i. ch. 3.
[1059] The book usually sells for about 150 francs.
[1060] Given, also enlarged, in the folio known as Catherwood’s Views.
[1061] The German version was made from this (Jena, 1872).
[1062] Particularly ch. 13, 14. Charnay is the last of the explorers of Palenqué. All the other accounts of the ruins found here and there are based on the descriptions of those who have been named, or at least nothing is added of material value by other actual visitors like Norman (Rambles in Yucatan, p. 284). Bancroft (iv. 294) enumerates a number of such second-hand describers. The most important work since Bancroft’s summary is Manuel Larrainzar’s Estudios sobre la historia de America, sus ruinas y antigüedades, y sobre el orígen de sus habitantes (Mexico, 1875-78), in five vols., all of whose plates are illustrations from the ruins of Palenqué, which are described and compared with other ancient remains throughout the world. Cf. Brühl, Culturvölker d. alt. Amerikas. Plans of the ruins will be found in Waldeck (pl. vii., followed mainly by Bancroft, iv. 298, 307), Stephens (ii. 310), Dupaix (pl. xi.), Kingsborough (iv. pl. 13), and Charnay (ch. 13 and 14). The views of the ruins given by these authorities mainly make up the stock of cuts in all the popular narratives.
The most interesting of the carvings is what is known as the Tablet of the Cross, which was taken from one of the minor buildings, and is now in the National Museum at Washington. It has often been engraved, but such representations never satisfied the student till they could be tested by the best of Charnay’s photographs. (Engravings in Brasseur and Waldeck, pl. 21, 22; Rosny’s Essai sur le déchiffrement, etc.; Minutoli’s Beschreibung einer alten Stadt in Guatimala (Berlin, 1832); Stephens’s Cent. Amer., ii.; Bancroft, Nat. Races, iv. 333; Charnay, Les anciens Villes, and Eng. transl. p. 255; Nadaillac, 325; Powell’ s Rept., i. 221; cf. p. 234; Amer. Antiquarian, vii. 200.) The most important discussion of the tablet is Charles Rau’s Palenqué Tablet in the U. S. National Museum (Washington, 1879), being the Smithsonian Contri. to Knowledge, no. 331, or vol. xxii. It contains an account of the explorations that have been made at Palenqué, and a chapter on the “Aboriginal writing in Mexico, Central America, and Yucatan, with some account of the attempted translations of Maya hieroglyphics.” Rau’s conclusion is that it is a Phallic symbol. Cf. a summary in Amer. Antiquarian, vi., Jan., 1884, and in Amer. Art Review, 1880, p. 217. Rau’s paper was translated into Spanish and French: Tablero del Palenque en el Museo nacional de los Estados-Unidos [traducido por Joaquin Davis y Miguel Perez], in the Anales del Museo nacional. Tomo 2, pp. 131-203. (México, 1880.) La Stèle de Palenqué du Musée national des Etats-Unis, à Washington. Traduit de l’Anglais avec autorisation de l’auteur. In the Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. x. (Paris, 1887.) Rau’s views were criticised by Morgan.
There are papers by Charency on the interpretation of the hieroglyphs in Le Muséon (Paris, 1882, 1883).
The significance of the cross among the Nahuas and Mayas has been the subject of much controversy, some connecting it with a possible early association with Christians in ante-Columbian days (Bancroft, iii. 468). On this later point see Bamps, Les traditions relatives à l’homme blanc et au signe de la cruz en Amérique à l’Epoque précolumbienne, in the Compte rendu, Congrès des Américanistes (Copenhagen, 1883), p. 125; and “Supposed vestiges of early Christian teaching in America,” in the Catholic Historical Researches (vol. i., Oct., 1885). The symbolism is variously conceived. Bandelier (Archæol. Jour.) holds it to be the emblem of fire, indeed an ornamented fire-drill, which later got mixed up with the Spanish crucifix. Brinton (Myths of the New World, 95) sees in it the four cardinal points, the rain-bringers, the symbol of life and health, and cites (p. 96) various of the early writers in proof. Brinton (Am. Hero Myths, 155) claims to have been the first to connect the Palenqué cross with the four cardinal points. The bird and serpent—the last shown better in Charnay’s photograph than in Stephens’s cut—is (Myths, 119) simply a rebus of the air-god, the ruler of the winds. Brinton says that Waldeck, in a paper on the tablet in the Revue Américaine (ii. 69), came to a similar conclusion. Squier (Nicaragua, ii. 337) speaks of the common error of mistaking the tree of life of the Mexicans for the Christian symbol. Cf. Powell’s Second Rept., Bur. of Ethnol., p. 208; the Fourth Rept., p. 252, where discredit is thrown upon Gabriel de Mortillet’s Le Signe de la cross avant le Christianisme (Paris, 1866); Joly’s Man before Metals, 339; and Charnay’s Les Anciens Villes (or Eng. transl. p. 85). Cf. for various applications the references in Bancroft’s index (v. p. 671).