Vol. XXV, No. 6 



WASHINGTON 



June, 1914 



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THE HOME OF A FORGOTTEN RACE 

 Mysterious Chichen Itza, in Yucatan, Mexico 



By Edward H. Thompson 



Formerly U. S. Consul at Merida, Yucatan 



THE ruined group of Chichen Itza, 

 on the Peninsula of Yucatan, 

 Mexico, covers a space of fully 3 

 square miles. Over all this wide territory 

 are scattered carved and squared stones 

 in countless thousands, and fallen col- 

 umns by the hundreds, while the form- 

 less remains and outlined walls of huge 

 structures fallen into ruin are seen on 

 every side. 



Seven massive structures of carved 

 stone and adamantine mortar still tower 

 erect and almost habitable. Their fa- 

 cades, though gray and haggard with age 

 and seamed by time, sustain the claim 

 that Chichen Itza, in the Americas, is one 

 of the world's greatest monuments of 

 antiquity. 



The heart of most of the cities of an- 

 tiquity was a castle or temple ; in this 

 great American monument the heart was 

 a castle and a temple — both in one. 



As this is a popular descriptive article 

 rather than a technical one, I shall try to 

 restrain my always present desire and in- 

 ject only enough figures to give adequate 

 conceptions of size and distance. 



A terrace as broad and level as a plain 

 is raised 10 feet or more above the sur- 

 rounding surface, built up with rubble 

 and finished with a lime cement — hard, 

 white, and durable. On this man-made 

 plain was built, among other structures ; 

 a pyramid of nine terraces (see page 



586), each faced w r ith inlaid paneled 

 stonework and well finished. 



On each of the four inclined faces of 

 this pyramid a stairway was built 1 1 1 

 feet long and 28.7 feet wide, with 104 

 steps rising from the base-level up to the 

 crowning platform. 



Each of the four angles of the pyramid 

 is formed by the undulating body of a 

 great stone serpent. Descending from 

 the crowning platform, each undulation 

 of the body marks a gradient, a terrace 

 plane, while on each side of the northern 

 stairway a serpent head, with wide-open 

 jaws, carved from a single mass of lime- 

 stone, rests on the plane beneath. A 

 strong man cannot hope to lift the small- 

 est stone that goes into the making of 

 this serpent body. 



THE CASTLE TEMPLE 



All this is simply of the base, the 

 preparation for and the leading up to the 

 building proper, the Castle Temple (see 

 page 586). This temple is not large, 

 measured by the standards of the pres- 

 ent day, or even by that of those ancient 

 builders. Like the heart of the human 

 body, it was not large but important. 



Built on the level platform that crowned 

 the pyramid, it is itself only 43 feet by 29 

 feet, with a narrow level space around it 

 on the platform's outer edge barely wide 

 enough for two to walk abreast in safety. 



