PALENQUE. 33 



The whole of the front room of the building is in complete ruin. There is a doorway 

 through the main wall, which has been covered by a wooden lintel, and was flanked 

 on each side by a panel of stucco glyphs, of which the scars alone remain. 



On the back wall of the building, facing the doorway, was a large plaque in stucco, 

 figured by Waldeck, and part of it sketched by Catherwood. The design represented 

 a man seated on a couch or chair, with a jaguar's or puma's head at each end, and 

 with the animal's feet serving as the supports of the seat, somewhat in the style of 

 the oval plaque in House E. (See Plate XLIV.) The figure of the man is now 

 entirely broken away. 



An opening in the floor at the south end of this inner room gives access to a very 

 steep stairway, which descends to a lower chamber which is devoid of all ornament. 

 At the south-east corner of this chamber is an entrance (which has at one time been 

 blocked up) to another smaller chamber which is now unroofed and open to the air. 



To the south and south-east of the House of the Lion, along the side of the stream 

 and on the hill-slopes, there is a collection of low mounds, containing a great number 

 of small chambers ; two or three of these chambers contain stone tables, and some 

 appear to have passages leading out of them to inner rooms which have been subse- 

 quently blocked up. All the chambers were probably used as places of sepulchre. 



At the eastern end of the section-line M-N (Plates I. and II.) there is a building 

 of which only the north wall and part of the main wall remain standing. It appears 

 to have been built on the usual plan, with three openings through the main wall. 

 The remains of the chambers are choked with fallen masonry. No ornamentation 

 could be seen. 



To the south of this building, raised on a higher terrace, is the remains of another 

 building, which is in such a complete state of ruin that no plan of it could be made 

 without removing a great amount of fallen masonry. On the south side of it is a flat- 

 topped mound, on which no trace of a building could be found. 



At the south-east corner of the plan (Plate I.) the ground rises in a series of slopes 

 and terraces, surmounted by a long low mound which appeared to contain several small 

 chambers. 



At the foot of the terraces, on the southern side of a small plaza, is a large building 

 (cut across by the section-line F-Q) which has the appearance of having been built 

 in a solid mass; but in its present ruined condition it is impossible to say whether this 

 is the case, or whether the building formerly contained chambers which have been 

 compactly filled in by the falling of the roof. The front and side walls are almost 

 completely destroyed, and no remains of doorways could be traced in them. The 



9* 



