In all of these reliefs the flattened cranial type is present, and no doubt represents the ideal of beauty among those ancient people. The stuccoes appear to have been moulded upon the undercoating of cement after it had become hard. The brush of the painter was then employed in its final embellishment.[556] Adjacent to the eastern stairway leading downward into the main court of the palace are great stone slabs, forming a surface on each side of the steps fifty feet long by eleven feet high. Waldeck, Stephens and Bancroft furnish views of gigantic human figures sculptured in low relief upon these surfaces. Both the attitudes and expressions portrayed indicate that the groups represented are either captives or possibly victims for sacrifice.[557] On the opposite side of the court, and on the stone face of the balustrade of a stairway, two figures, male and female, are sculptured, which, according to Waldeck, are of the Caucasian type. The same artist has shown the beautiful grecques which adorn the panels of the cornice.[558] Waldeck and Bancroft have figured a remarkable stone tablet of elliptical form, in which a princely personage is represented as sitting cross-legged on a chair formed of a double-headed animal, pronounced by Stephens to resemble a leopard. Catherword’s plate, in Morelet’s _Travels_, shows an ornament suspended from the neck of the chief figure resembling an effigy of the sun, while in Waldeck’s drawing the Egyptian Tau is graven upon the ornament.[559] The accompanying cut shows Waldeck’s drawing (employed by Mr. Bancroft). [Illustration: Sculptured Tablet in the Palace.] Four hundred yards south of the palace stands the ruins of a pyramid and temple, which, at the time of Dupaix’s and of Waldeck’s visits were in a good state of preservation, but quite dilapidated when seen by Charnay. The temple faces the east, and on the western wall of its inner apartment, itself facing the eastern light, is found (or rather was, for it has now entirely disappeared) the most beautiful specimen of stucco relief in America. M. Waldeck, with the critical insight of an experienced artist, declares it “worthy to be compared to the most beautiful works of the age of Augustus.” He therefore named the temple the Beau Relief. The above cut is a reduction from Waldeck’s drawing used in Mr. Bancroft’s work, and is very accurate. However, the peculiar beauty of Waldeck’s drawing is such that it must be seen in order to be fully appreciated. [Illustration: Beau Relief in Stucco.]