146 Mr. Raxiking on ihe Ruins of Palenque, 



I' 



Description of the Seventeen Plates which are published ;^ but not bound 

 in the same order in Two Volumes which the Writer has seen ; they 

 arey therefore^ now numbered and described so as to be easily re- 

 f&rred to, 



I. — Is the largest plate, (fifteen inches hy ten,) representing a 

 Greek Cross, much decorated, with a bird perched upon it, with 

 something like a branch in his beak. A man stands on each side 

 of the Cross, one of whom is holding a figure of an imperfect or 

 fabulous infant. 



The borders appear to be registers of their victories, by the re- 

 presentation of heads, hands, and ears ; accompanied with ciphers, 

 to denote the numbers slain. 



Remark. — The Toltecs left their native land, A.D. 544, 

 and the leader of the Guatemalans was Votan. It has been 

 shown what tremendous convulsions existed among the Turks, 

 whose head-quarters were in the Calmuc country at that pe- 

 riod *, (^Turquestan.) The eastern nation, called the Eastern 

 Ouie, had a sovereign whose name was Voutim, and he was 

 j>oisoned in the year 543 f . Now it is quite probable that 

 this is the same name as Votan, for D'Herbelot, from whom 

 this is extracted, (vol. iv. p. 71,) uses m for n. Mongols he 

 spells Moumgols, (see his Index.) The American tradition 

 brings Votan from the north, {Humboldt, Res. i. 173. See 

 also vol. i. p. 319, for the remarks of Baron H. regarding 

 Votan : and also for the similitude of the border-registers of 

 the Indians of Chiapa (Palenque) to those of the Mexicans.) 

 The writer is averse to etymological proofs, but he does not 

 deem this an overstrained one. With respect to the Cross, it 

 was well known at this period in Tartary ; the Turks and Huns 

 warred with the Christians at Constantinople ; and the Tar- 

 tars of all descriptions evdr called themselves descendants of 

 Noah. At this epoch the Alcoran had not appeared. (Ma- 

 homet was born in 569.) These circumstances may very sa- 

 tisfactorily account for their knowledge of the Cross and the 

 bird. The border-registers are in the style of those of the 

 Mexicans, but not the same characters, nor so methodical J. 



• * Conquest of Peru and Mexico, p. 269. 



t " From 439 to 589, the north of China was governed by Tartars, the south by- 

 Chinese. Never was history more fertile in great events than during that period of 

 liriffandages." — D'Herbelot, iv. 57. 



J See Clavigero, Vol. i. p. 107, 



