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It stands by itself on a ruined mound apart from the other structures. Kabah was an ancient city. The ruins are old, and the city may have belonged to the first age of the Maya period. The ruins of Chichen-Itza are situated east of Mayapan, about half way between the eastern and western coasts of the peninsula of Yucatan. A public road runs through the space of ground over which they are spread.
A resolute attempt to penetrate the forest brought the explorers in view of great edifices standing on an elevated terrace estimated to be 800 feet long by 100 feet wide. The decorations seemed to have been abundant and very rich, but the structures were in a sad state of dilapidation. One remarkable monument found at Kabah resembles a triumphal arch.
My excuse for entering into these details must be that some of the facts I have to offer are new. A bas-relief at Kabah, described in Mr. Stephens' account of his second journey, bears considerable resemblance to that on the so-called "sacrificial stone" of Mexico; and the warrior has the characteristic Mexican maquahuitl, or "Hand-wood," a mace set with rows of obsidian teeth.
Stephens gave the first account of Kabah, and described three other important edifices besides that already named. One of these he thought was, when entire, the most imposing structure at Kabah. It was 147 feet long by 106 wide, and had three distinct stories, each successive story being smaller than that below it.
The ruins known as Kabah are on the site of what must have been one of the most imposing and important of the more ancient cities. Here the most conspicuous object is a stone-faced mound 180 feet square at the base, with a range of ruined apartments at the bottom.
Its edifices were finished in a different style, and show fewer inscriptions. Round pillars, somewhat in the Doric style, are found at Uxmal, but none like the square, richly-carved pillars, bearing inscriptions, discovered in some of the other ruins. Copan and Palenque, and even Kabah, in Yucatan, may have been very old cities, if not already old ruins, when Uxmal was built.
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