Note V-55 — Chapter V · ANTIQUITIES OF YUCATAN.

Stephens, Yucatan, vol. i., pp. 312, 316, gives views of the east and west fronts, the former of which I have inserted in my description; and in Cent. Amer., vol. ii., p. 420, a view from the south, which is copied in Armin, Das Heutige Mex., p. 92, which last authority also gives what seems to be a restoration of the pyramid from Waldeck. Waldeck's plates, ix., x., xi., relate to this structure; plate ix. is a view from a point above the whole and directly over the centre, including a ground plan of the summit building; plate x. is the western elevation of the pyramid and building with the eastern elevation of the latter; and plate xi. is a view of one of the statues as already mentioned. Charnay's photograph 35 gives a western view of the whole, which is also included in photograph 38; it is to be noted that his plan places the Casa del Adivino considerably south of the Nunnery. Norman, Rambles in Yuc., p. 162, gives an altogether imaginary view of the pyramid and building, perhaps intended for the western front. 'La base de la colline factice est revêtue d'un parement vertical avec une frise dans laquelle on retrouve l'imitation des rondins de bois, surmontés d'une sorte de balustrade presque entièrement détruite.' Viollet-le-Duc, in Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. 70. On the east front of the building are 'deux portes carrées et deux petits pavillons couverts d'une espèce de toit reposant sur des pilastres.' 'Tel est ce monument, chef-d'œuvre d'art et d'élégance. Si j'étais arrivé un an plus tard à Uxmal, je n'aurais pas pu en donner un dessin complet; le centre avait été dégradé par suite de l'extraction de quelques pierres nécessaires à la solidité de cette partie de l'édifice.' Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., p. 96. Yet if the structure was as perfect and his examination as complete as he claims, it is very strange, to say the least, that he did not discover the apartments in the western projections. Zavala, in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., p. 33, says that the interior walls of this building are plastered. Stephens, Charnay, and Brasseur, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 578-88, give the tradition of the Dwarf, which gives this temple one of its names. 'The construction of these ornaments is not less peculiar and striking than the general effect. There were no tablets or single stones, each representing separately and by itself an entire subject; but every ornament or combination is made up of separate stones, on each of which part of the subject was carved, and which was then set in its place in the wall.' 'Perhaps it may, with propriety, be called a species of sculptured mosaic.' Stephens' Cent. Amer., vol. ii., p. 422.