File:The ancient cities of the New World - being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882 (1887) (14779868591).jpg

Identifier: ancientcitiesofn00char (find matches)
Title: The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Charnay, Désiré, 1828-1915
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indians of Central America
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ensive, the best known, and themost magnificent monument of Central America; its orna-mentation is in turns simple or very elaborate. The frieze,which runs in a line of 325 feet, having a row of colossalheads, divided in panels, filled alternately with grecques inhigh relief, and diamond or lattice-work, is most striking inits effect. The palace looks new, although it has beenabandoned for over three hundred years ; and it would be entirehad it not been for the vandalism of its owners, who usedthe stones of the basement for the erection of their hacienda. The youthful appearance of this edifice is obvious to theobserver, for monuments, like men, carry more or less theirage on their countenance, which a thoughtful mind can easilyread. Their wrinkles are seen in the fissures of their walls,in their stones eaten away by the elements, whilst the moss,the trees, and the lianas mantling over them, complete theirhoary exterior. A Iraditioi) derives the name of Uxmal from a word meaning ,^111
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UXMAL. 397 thrice built; whether the town was demohshed and recon-structed, or whether its monuments were built three times, doesnot appear. The latter version would indicate the Indian methodof building. In fact, this is seen in all our drawings of the palace,where the fallen edifice shows that the inner wall is in a perfectstate of preservation, forming an independent work. These innerwalls formed the apartments of the edifice, and in all probabilitywere perpendicular to a height of some 6 to 9 feet, when the sidewalls began to approach each other so as to form the false vault(triangular arch) of the double range of apartments of thepalace. This was the shell or first construction. Then the intervalbetween the arches was filled by layers of stone, whilst the outsidewalls, resting on the arches, were solid masonry. This was thesecond construction. Then came the third, when the outer wallswere covered with tenons and sculptures. It should be addedthat this mode of building is applicab

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