In front, where the doorway of this temple once stood, are two square
carved pillars, not monolithic, but built of slabs a foot or more thick;
but the topmost slabs have come away and lie on the ground. Between
these pillars, the back hollowed as if for a ceremonial seat, is the
much broken form of a tiger (jaguar). Between this building and the
pyramid are heaps of fallen stones, and in the dense bush we find and
photograph huge slabs of limestone 3 or 4 feet square and more than a
foot thick, upon which are carved quite brilliantly lifelike
representations of a much bewhiskered jaguar and a parrot eating a nut
of the mamey tree. Among these littered stones are, too, many serpents'
heads and pieces of a curious frieze decorated with skulls and
crossbones.
Standing on the top of the Castillo platform, looking northeastward, one
sees shining white amid the trees the pillars of what is known as the
Temple of the Tables, so called in allusion to its chief feature, a
series of tables, huge stone slabs supported on Atlantean figures. These
latter are of extraordinary interest. They have the square, severe
Egyptian headdress and fillet, and so closely resemble in features and
general appearance the Sphinx-forms of Egyptian mythology that one
starts back in amazement on first seeing them. One curious thing, too,
is that a close examination shows an extraordinary diversity of feature.
Whoever the sculptor was, he was not content with producing a
stereotyped face, but actually aimed at and obtained a series which one
might reasonably guess to be portraits. But of these squat figures, more
when we come to our conclusions as to who the Mayans were.
Away to the north of the Castillo, but a few yards from the path which
leads to the Sacred Cenote, is a small ruin known as the Temple of the
Cones, because in front of it are perhaps a hundred small cone-shaped
stones about 2 to 3 feet long, looking for all the world like the
10-inch shells fired from modern artillery. Some writers have found a
suggestion of phallic worship in these, but the close inspection we made
convinced us this is not the case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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