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Updated: May 26, 2025
In Mayab there also existed mysteries, as proved by symbols discovered in the month of June last by myself in the monument generally called the Dwarf’s House, at Uxmal. It seemed that the initiated had to pass through different gradations to reach the highest or third; if we are to judge by the number of rooms dedicated to their performance, and the disposition of said rooms.
In the highest form of this architecture in Yucatan and Chiapas, the pyramidal elevation appears faced with dry stone walls. The buildings upon its summit were often in the form of a quadrangle, with an open court in the center; but the buildings were generally disconnected at the four angles, as in the House of the Nuns at Uxmal.
A circular hole at the summit of each, barely large enough to admit a man, is the only opening into them. It is not known whether they were used as cisterns, or for granaries, like those of Egypt. The whole country to the south of Uxmal is covered with ruins. At a place called Labra, there is a tower richly ornamented, forty feet in height, which stands on the summit of an artificial elevation.
Some of the great edifices in these old ruins, such as the “Palace” at Palenque, and the “Casa del Gobernador” at Uxmal, remind us of the “communal buildings” of the Pueblos, and yet there is a wide difference between them. They are not alike either in character or purpose, although such great buildings as the “Palace” may have been designed for the occupation of several families.
A mile or so from Uxmal is another aguada; but judging from the great number of artificial reservoirs, built on the terraces and in the courts of all the monuments, it would seem as if the people there depended more on the clouds for their provision of water than on the wells and senotes.
In Lord Kingsborough's great work on Mexican Antiquities there is one picture-writing, the Dresden Codex, which is not of Aztec origin at all. Its hieroglyphics are those of Palenque and Uxmal; and in this manuscript we have drawings of hatchets like those of Mexico, and fixed in the same kind of handles, but of much neater workmanship. But here we come upon a difficulty.
It would seem to be the Maya niblu; nib, to thank; LU, the Bagre, a silurus fish. Niblu would then be the thanksgiving fish. Strange to say, the high priest at Uxmal and Chichen, elder brother of Chaacmol, first son of Can, the founder of those cities, is CAY, the fish, whose effigy is my last discovery in June, among the ruins of Uxmal.
This building appears to have inclosed another of older date. Other less important edifices in the ruins of Uxmal have been described by explorers, some of which stand on high pyramidal mounds; and inscriptions are found here, but they are not so abundant as at Palenque and Copan.
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