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 : 4,200.000. 



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 



