_The sistrum_ was an instrument used by Egyptians and Mayas alike during the performance of their religious rites and acts of worship. I have seen it used lately by natives in Yucatan in the dance forming part of the worship of the sun. The Egyptians enclosed the brains, entrails and viscera of the deceased in funeral vases, called _canopas_, that were placed in the tombs with the coffin. When I opened Chaacmol’s mausoleum I found, as I have already said, two stone urns, the one near the head containing the remains of brains, that near the chest those of the heart and other viscera. This fact would tend to show again a similar custom among the Mayas and Egyptians, who, besides, placed with the body an empty vase--symbol that the deceased had been judged and found righteous. This vase, held between the hands of the statue of Chaacmol, is also found held in the same manner by many other statues of different individuals. It was customary with the Egyptians to deposit in the tombs the implements of the trade or profession of the deceased. So also with the Mayas--if a priest, they placed books; if a warrior, his weapons; if a mechanic, the tools of his art,[TN-23] The Egyptians adorned the tombs of the rich--which generally consisted of one or two chambers--with sculptures and paintings reciting the names and the history of the life of the personage to whom the tomb belonged. The mausoleum of Chaacmol, interiorly, was composed of three different superposed apartments, with their floors of concrete well leveled, polished and painted with yellow ochre; and exteriorly was adorned with magnificent bas-reliefs, representing his totem and that of his wife--dying warriors--the whole being surrounded by the image of a feathered serpent--_Can_, his family name, whilst the walls of the two apartments, or funeral chambers, in the monument raised to his memory, were decorated with fresco paintings, representing not only Chaacmol’s own life, but the manners, customs, mode of dressing of his contemporaries; as those of the different nations with which they were in communication: distinctly recognizable by their type, stature and other peculiarities. The portraits of the great and eminent men of his time are sculptured on the jambs and lintels of the doors, represented life-size. In Egypt it was customary to paint the sculptures, either on stone or wood, with bright colors--yellow, blue, red, green predominating. In Mayab the same custom prevailed, and traces of these colors are still easily discernible on the sculptures; whilst they are still very brilliant on the beautiful and highly polished stucco of the walls in the rooms of certain monuments at Chichen-Itza. The Maya artists seem to have used mostly vegetable colors; yet they also employed ochres as pigments, and cinnabar--we having found such metallic colors in Chaacmol’s mausoleum. Mrs. Le Plongeon still preserves some in her possession. From where they procured it is more than we can tell at present.