22 PALENQUE. 



House E. (Plates XLI. to XLIV.) 



This house stands almost in the centre of the Palace Mound and is in a very good 

 state of preservation. There is no ornamental stucco moulding on the outer surface ; 

 the lower cornice is very heavy and has afforded good protection to the walls ; the 

 face of the unadorned frieze is almost perpendicular, and the outer surface of the roof, 

 which is solidly huilt, is inclined at a slight angle, and covered with a thick layer of 

 plaster still in a fairly good state of preservation. There are doorways both at the 

 sides and ends of the house. The north end of the house is well shown in Plate XVI. 

 as forming part of the south side of the eastern court, and the short flight of steps can 

 be seen which lead up to the small doorway with a stone lintel at the end of the 

 eastern corridor. 



The house (see Plate XLI.) is similar in general plan to those already described. 

 On the east side are two large and one small doorway. One of the larger doorways 

 has been partly walled up, both had wooden lintels ; the small doorway had a stone 

 lintel. 



There are three secondary transverse walls built across the eastern corridor. One of 

 them extends through the doorway in the main wall almost across the western corridor. 

 The third transverse wall, which may have had a doorway through it, cuts off a small 

 portion of the southern end of the corridor, in which, close up against the southern 

 wall, stands a stone table supported by four short legs. The doorway in the south 

 wall has been blocked up. Near the middle of this corridor, a few feet to the north of 

 the transverse wall, a small circular stone has been let into the floor, and the stone 

 immediately above it in the vault has been pierced from the under surface, so as to 

 leave a tenon round which a cord could have been passed. 



Above the doorway at the northern end of this eastern corridor, and extending for 

 a short distance along both walls just below the spring of the roof, is the stucco ornament 

 figured in Plates XLII. and XLI II. 



The doorway connecting the two corridors through the north part of the main wall 

 has been blocked up. 



There are four doorways in the west wall, one of them narrow and stone-capped, 

 opposite the similar doorway in the east wall. 



The doorway in the north end of the west corridor has been blocked up ; it originally 

 had a wooden lintel. 



At the south end of the west corridor is an opening in the floor, from which descends 

 a stairway leading into one of the three subterranean passages which communicate 

 with the three corridors enclosed in the southern part of the Palace Mound. On the 

 face of the vault of the stairway is a stucco ornament much ruined by the drip of water, 

 somewhat similar in design to that floured on Plate XLVIL, a. 



