EXPLANATION OF THE AVALL PAINTINGS 



The fragments of painting rejjrodiiced in plates xxxvii to xxxix 

 are so arranged that each piece furnished with its special number rep- 

 resents a connected strip, and the transition from one number to 

 another always means a gap in the painting caused by the destruc- 

 tion of the intervening part. It is apparent that only the upper 

 parts of the frieze have been preserved. This is very much to be 

 regretted, because the figures or groujis on these friezes, as in the 

 Vienna manuscript, Avere accompanied by dates, designations of years 

 and days, which were certainly, as in the A^ienna codex, doubly im- 

 portant, serving, on the one hand, as a connecting bond between the 

 series of scenes represented by bringing them into a definite chro- 

 nologic point of view, and, on the other, furnishing the names or des- 

 ignations of the personages represented. To be sure, an attempt has 

 not yet been made to inter})ret and decipher all these dates in any of 

 the manuscripts of this class. Any siicli interpretation, however, is 

 made forever impossible for the paintings of Mitla, because the lower 

 half of the frieze in which the dates stood or down into which they 

 extended is entirely destroyed. 



The bands grouped on plate xxxvii belong together in respect to 

 their character, inasmuch as they all have for their upper and lateral 

 border the " house of the sun ", that is, a band which is formed by 

 the regular repetition of the elements of the sun glyph, namely, eyes 

 and rays. In fragment 1 these rays are stone knives, between which 

 an eye surrounded by raj's and eyes looks down, and m the other 

 fragments human faces look down surrounded by rays consisting of 

 figures resembling eyes. 



The fragments G to 11 belong to the east side of the court adjoining 

 Palace I. The others, however, all belong to Palace IV, fragment 1 

 to the east side and fragments 2 to 5 to the north side. It appears 

 from this that the entire Palace IV must have been dedicated to the 

 sun god. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that in the middle 

 of the north side of this palace (fragment 5), in a conspicuously 

 prominent place, there is a sun glyph, in tlie middle of Avhich there 

 was doubtless a representation of the sun god, l)ut which has been 

 cut away, intentionally, as it seems. The north side was the principal 

 side in all the palaces. It lay along tlie principal axis, since the prin- 

 cipal courts of all (he palaces open to\\ard the south, and the mam 

 building, with its adjoining court, lies on the north side of the chief 



306 



