The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882 . of wind andspeech. We noticed in a former chapter this spiral aboutQuetzalcoatl on the outer relief of the altar in the Templeof the Cross at Palenque. All these caryatides representlong-bearded men,whose type is identi-cal with those on theTula relief, as maybe seen by the mostsuperficial comparisonof the two. But isthe spiral an emblemof speech ? That it isso may be assumedfrom the upper carya-tid, which only sup-porting the entablaturehas no spiral aboutthe mouth, while thelow
The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882 . of wind andspeech. We noticed in a former chapter this spiral aboutQuetzalcoatl on the outer relief of the altar in the Templeof the Cross at Palenque. All these caryatides representlong-bearded men,whose type is identi-cal with those on theTula relief, as maybe seen by the mostsuperficial comparisonof the two. But isthe spiral an emblemof speech ? That it isso may be assumedfrom the upper carya-tid, which only sup-porting the entablaturehas no spiral aboutthe mouth, while thelower one not onlybears aloft the centralfigure and the edifice,but it seems to carry,to create and breathe life into the whole, as the emblem ofcivilisation. At least so it struck us when we looked at thesebearded figures which support the pillars, and saw the symbolicalsign of quickening speech around the mouth of each, andconsidered that the Toltecs were the builders of these monuments,which they reared by their mighty word, in accordance withtheir pacific and civilising character, as described by Herrera and.
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