570 



NATURE 



[April 14, 1898 



whether they could be ascribed to some earlier and more 

 primitive race. 



The interest attaching to the result of Mr. Thompson's labours 

 has been somewhat discounted by the publication in 1896 of the 

 admirable treatise on the caves of Yucatan by Mr. Henry 

 Mercer, but to Mr. Thompson must remain the credit of having 

 been first in the field. 



Mr. Thompson's report is accompanied by some capital pho- 

 tographs of the rock carvings, taken by Mr. H. N. Sweet and 



Fic. 3. — Terra-cotta v; s; (i s'ze 



Mr. M. H. Saville, showing them all to be rude and primitive 

 in character, with the single exception of a life-sized human figure 

 with the mutilated remains of a date expressed in the Maya 

 notation above its head, which is just such a figure as one might 

 find on the walls of the ruined temples above ground. 



Mr. Thompson's main conclusion is that from the earliest 

 period of the cave's use as a human habitation the people seem to 



Fig. 4. — Section of a chaltune. 



have been of the same manners, religious customs, and house- 

 hold habits as those who built the great structures above ground 

 now in ruins, Mr. Mercer, after pointing out that the caves 

 were not properly dwellings but rather temporary halting-places, 

 has given it as his opinion, (i) that no earlier inhabitant pre- 

 ceded the builders of the ruined cities of Yucatan ; (2) that the 



people revealed in the caves had reached the country in geo- 

 logically recent times ; (3) that these people, substantially the 

 ancestors of the present Maya Indians, had not developed their 

 culture in Yucatan, but had brought it with them from some- 

 where else. 



In a country where water is so scarce, it is only reasonable to 

 suppose that the inhabitants would have devised some means of 

 storing the precious fluid ; and in the existence of numerous 

 "chal tunes" we have almost certain evidence of the means 01 

 storage most commonly employed. These chaltunes are " single 

 chambers of a vault-like appearance, built from ten to fifteen 

 feet beneath the surface of the ground, and communicating with 

 the outer world by means of a narrow well- like opening placed 

 near the apex of the vaulted roof." They are somewhat 

 irregular in shape, but the prevailing form is shown in the 

 following section. 



Mr. Thompson paid particular attention to the chaltunes 

 amongst the ruins of Labna,^ a neighbourhood where — if the 

 opinion that they were used for the storage of water be 

 correct — it is likely that they would be found in considerable 

 numbers, as the nearest permanent water supply is found at the 

 Cave of Loltun, twelve miles distant. Mr. Thompson is of 

 opinion that many of the rougher class of chaltunes were formed 

 in the cavities or pockets from which the white earth, called by 

 the natives "zahcab," had been taken. "This earth is of a 



NO. 1485, VOL. 57] 



Fig. 5.— The mouth of a chaltune. 



peculiar character, and served the ancient builders, as it does 

 those of the present day, as a building material to ,mix with 

 lime in place of siliceous sand, which is practically unknown 

 in Yucatan." The other chaltunes are well-built chambers, 

 having their walls, roof, and floor of dressed stones, and finished 

 with a coating of fine, hard stucco. In the ruins of Labna, each 

 edifice and each terrace was found to be provided with one or 

 more of these subterranean chambers, the largest of which, 

 however, would not hold more than 10,000 gallons. 



Many of the chaltunes had become hopelessly ruined, and 

 many were filled up with earth and rubbish ; but some of them 

 had been purposely sealed up by the ancient inhabitants, and 

 these presented a new and interesting field for investigation. 

 Human bones and various objects of human workmanship were 

 found among the deposits at the bottom of the chambers ; and 

 Mr. Thompson is led to the conclusion that many of these 

 singular structures, after having been first used as reservoirs, 

 were finally used as depositories for human remains, probably 

 secondary burials, in connection with some special rite, after 

 which the entrance of the chaltune was closed and cemented. 



Alfred P. Maudslay. 



p. S.— While the foregoing was in the printer's hands, an 

 article on Copan has been' brought to my notice, published 

 in the Century Magazine for January, in which Mr. Gordon 

 states that he has finished his work on the hieroglyphic stair- 

 way. It proves to have been a single flight of steps, and not 

 one stairway built over another. The illustration given on p. 

 569 shows the foot of the stairway as it was at first disclosed 



1 Memoirs 0/ the Peabody Museum, vol. i. No. 3: " The Chaltunes of 

 Labna, Yucatan." " Report of Explorations by the Museum 1888-89 and 

 1890-91," by Edward H. Thompson. 



