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Updated: May 26, 2025
Some of the ornamentation of this building has been described in the strongest terms of admiration. Mr. Stephens said of it, “The cornice running over the doorways, tried by the severest rules of art recognized among us, would embellish the architecture of any known era.” At Uxmal the walls were smooth below the cornice; here they are covered with decorations from top to bottom.
The filling in of the buildings being of inferior materials, crude or sun-dried bricks at Warka and Mugheir; of unhewn stones of all shapes and sizes, in Uxmal and Chichen, faced with walls of hewn stones, many feet in thickness throughout. Grand exterior staircases lead to the summit, where was the shrine of the god, and temple.
Some of the houses were constructed on three sides of a court, like those on the Rio Chaco in New Mexico, others probably surrounded an open court or quadrangle, like the House of the Nuns at Uxmal; but this is not clearly shown. The best houses were usually two stories high, an upper and lower floor being mentioned. The second story receded from the first, probably in the terraced form.
Near Uxmal are the interesting ruins of Zayi, which present a new feature in Yucatan house architecture. Upon a low eminence are three independent structures, the second within and above the first or lowest, and the third within and above the second, presenting the appearance, in the distance, of a single quadrangular edifice in three receding stories.
He is said to represent in the Egyptian mythology, the sea, by some; by others, the sun. For jealousy, and to usurp the throne, he killed his brother at treason with three thrusts of his spear in the back. Around the belt of his statue at Uxmal used to be seen hanging the heads of his brothers CAY and CHAACMOL, together with that of MOÓ; whilst his feet rested on their flayed bodies.
I lately took tracings of two of these imprints that exist in the back saloon of the main hall, in the governor’s house at Uxmal, in order to calculate the height of the personage who thus attested to those of his race, as I learned from one of my Indian friends, who passes for a wizard, that the building was in naá, my house.
A common principle, as before stated, runs through all this architecture, from the "long-house" of the Iroquois to the "pueblo houses" of New Mexico, and to the so-called "palace" at Palenqne, and the "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal.
Sixth: That all there ever was of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan, and other pueblos in these areas, building for building, and stone for stone, are there now in ruins. Seventh: That nothing herein stated is inconsistent with the supposition that some of these structures were devoted to religious uses.
Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada and in favor of General Diaz I went to Uxmal to continue my researches among its ruined temples and palaces. There I took many photographs, surveyed the monuments, and, for the first time, found the remnants of the phallic worship of the Nahualts.
It is an interesting work, considered as a restoration, which can only claim to be an approximation. It will be noticed that three passage-ways were left open into the court, although the ground plan shows but one. In the Yucatan edifices, as the House of the Nuns at Uxmal, there is usually an arched gateway through the center of the building facing the court.
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