. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. THE MONUMENTS OF YUCATAN. 159 Mayas. Certain archa3ologists proud of beiug amongst the fiist to draw attention to the splendid structures of ChiajDas and Yuc-utan, did not fail to extol their magnificence, and even to compare them with the temples of Fgypt and Greece. Such praise was certainly not justified, for the Maya buildings lack elegance of proportion, sobriety of ornamentation, nobility and perfection in their sculp- tures. Nevertheless, their vast size, massive character, and lavish wealth of carvings attest a civilisation fur superior to
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. THE MONUMENTS OF YUCATAN. 159 Mayas. Certain archa3ologists proud of beiug amongst the fiist to draw attention to the splendid structures of ChiajDas and Yuc-utan, did not fail to extol their magnificence, and even to compare them with the temples of Fgypt and Greece. Such praise was certainly not justified, for the Maya buildings lack elegance of proportion, sobriety of ornamentation, nobility and perfection in their sculp- tures. Nevertheless, their vast size, massive character, and lavish wealth of carvings attest a civilisation fur superior to that of many civilised peoples in the Old World. Most of the Yucatan structures stand either on natural eminences or on artificial terraces. They are usuall}^ found in the vicinity of cenotes, or even built over these underground reservoirs, which were at all times places held in Fig. 68. —Chief Euins of Yucatan. Scale 1 :4, veneration by the surrounding populations. The monuments usually face the cardinal points, but not with astronomic accuracy, and the parts are rarely disposed in correct order, having apparently been erected without any general plan. Some archseologists have assigned a vast antiquity to these remains, attributing them to peoples who had already disappeared at the time of the conquest. But this opinion is no longer held, and is in fact refuted by tradition and internal evidence. According to the testimony both of the Sjjanish conquerors and of the national chronicles, the Mayas continued to use the temples for religious purposes down to the second half of the sixteenth century. Nearly all the Yucatan buildings affect the pyramidal form, temples and palaces alike rising from a broad base through a series of receding steps to the crowning structure on the summit. Such structures were absent from some of the pyramids, which in that case were. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced f
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