GANN] DESTROYERS OF THE TEMPLE 675 
We may therefore, [ think, safely conclude that the builders of the 
temple or their descendants were also its destroyers, though their 
method of destruction—paradoxical as it sounds—preserved it for pos- 
terity probably better than any contrivance which they could have 
employed for its permanent preservation. 
As to the reason for this partial destruction and burial of the tem- 
ple, we know that the Maya regarded the five intercalary days at the 
end of each year as unlucky and ill-omened, and that during them 
they were in the habit of destroying their household pottery utensils, 
together with some of their small household gods, which were renewed 
again for the new year. Furthermore, they intercalated twelve and 
one-half days at the end of every cycle, or period of fifty-two years, 
which were regarded as especially ill-omened.* 
It is not improbable that this painted stucco partially underwent the 
fate of other images of the gods during one of these especially 
unlucky periods at the end of the cycle;* for, as I have pointed out, 
the stucco had evidently been renewed twice, as two layers were found 
beneath the most superficial one. These obliterations and renewals 
may have taken place periodically as the unlucky periods came round 
and passed, till finally the period came when the temple was itself 
destroyed in the manner already described. 
While searching for mounds in the bush about 15 miles north of 
Santa Rita I came across a large inclosure, the walls of which were 4 
feet thick, and, though much broken down, had been about 6 feet in 
height. The inclosure was in the form of a parallelogram, three- 
quarters of a mile long by half a mile broad. Within it were the 
ruins of a church, in very fair preservation, the chancel, with the 
exception of its roof, being quite perfect. This had evidently been 
a fortified inclosure built by the Spaniards, and, from the fact that 
it was so near to Bacalar, which was one of their earliest settlements 
in Yucatan, and that all record of it has been lost, it was probably 
erected not very long after the conquest. It may be that the wor- 
shipers at the Santa Rita temple, finding themselves in such close 
proximity to a fortified Spanish settlement, and knowing that the 
conquerors took every means in their power to propagate the new and 
eradicate the old religion, as a last resort employed this method of 
preserving at least a portion of the sanctuary of their god from the 
sacrilegious hands of the invaders. Either of the foregoing explana- 
tions would account for the manner in which the temple had been at 
the same time destroyed and preserved. 


1See Antonio Gama, Descripcion, parte 1, p.52 et seq. Dr Cyrus Thomas denies any intercalation 
beyond the annual one, and his proof certainly appears convincing. See Cyrus Thomas, The Maya 
Year, p. 48. 
2**As soon as they were assured by the new fire that a new century, according to their belief, was 
granted to them by the gods, they employed the thirteen following days . . . in repairing their tem- 
ples and houses and in making every preparation for the grand festivals of the new century.’’- 
Francisco Clayigero, History of Mexico, book 6, sec. XXVI. 
