the time of Sir John Mandeville’s visit to Pekin in the fourteenth century; and as at Teotihuacan and among the Monguls the sun and moon were worshipped, so, according to Ranking, those American monuments are attributable to Mongul architects.[553] It would be easy for us to continue the citation of these fancied analogies, but it is no doubt already apparent to the reader that they are generally of too trivial a character to serve the ends of science, and we therefore dismiss their further consideration.[554] [Illustration: Stucco Bas-relief in the Palace. Fig. 1.] _Sculpture and Hieroglyphics._—The mound sculpture, as has been observed in the cuts illustrating a previous chapter of this work, though comparatively rude in most cases, still, in a few instances, is quite remarkable as affording true representations of animals and possibly of the human face. Considerable progress in the art of ornamentation in terra-cotta is displayed on many of the vases and burial urns exhumed from the mounds. Many of the lines, figures and borders traced in relief and sometimes in taglio on those vessels indicate not only that a sense of the beautiful was present, but that it had been cultivated to a considerable extent. The same remarks apply to the pottery of the Pueblos and Cliff-dwellers. At Palenque, however, the student of art meets with no mean attempts at delineating the human form—in fact, the success obtained in this difficult field alone characterized the work of the Palenque artists. It is presumed that nearly all of the piers separating the doorways in the eastern wall of the palace were ornamented with stucco bas-reliefs. Two out of six of the best preserved are shown in the following cuts. The most remarkable feature of the first (Fig. 1, reduced from Waldeck for Bancroft’s work) is the cranial type, deformed to a shocking degree, probably by artificial pressure, so generally employed by the ancient American races. Possibly it is but a caricature. [Illustration: Stucco Bas-relief in the Palace. Fig. 2.] Fig. 2 (a photographic reduction from Waldeck) presents us with a subject which has called forth no little discussion. The “elephant’s trunk” which protrudes from the elaborate head-dress of the priest has been thought to indicate an Asiatic influence.[555] We have already referred to the frequent occurrence of the “elephant trunk” ornament in Yucatan. The hieroglyphic signs at the top and on the faces of these reliefs no doubt hold locked up in their mysterious symbols the history of the scene.