Note VI-68 — Chapter VI · ANTIQUITIES OF TABASCO AND CHIAPAS, RUINS OF PALENQUE.

M. Viollet-le-Duc, judging from the nature and degree of art displayed in the ruins, concludes that the civilized nations of America were of a mixed race, Turanian or yellow from the north-west, and Aryan or white from the north-east, the former being the larger and the earlier element. Stucco work implies a predominance of Turanian blood in the artists; traces of wooden structures in architecture belong rather to the white races. Therefore he believes that Palenque was built during the continuance of the Empire of Xibalba, probably some centuries before Christ, by a people in which yellow blood predominated, although with some Aryan intermixture; but that the Yucatan cities owe their foundation to the same people at a later epoch and under a much stronger influence of the white races. In Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 32, 45, 97, 103, etc. 'Here were the remains of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar people, who had passed through all the stages incident to the rise and fall of nations; reached their golden age, and perished, entirely unknown. The links which connected them with the human family were severed and lost, and these were the only memorials of their footsteps upon earth.' Arguments against an extinct race and Egyptian resemblances. Stephens, vol. ii., pp. 356-7, 436-57. Dupaix believes in a flat-headed race that has become extinct, p. 29. After writing his narrative he made up his mind that Palenque was antediluvian, or at least that a flood had covered it. Lenoir, p. 76. M. Lenoir says that according to all voyagers and students the ruins are not less than 3000 years old. Id., p. 73. 'Catlin, Revue des Deux Mondes, March, 1867, p. 154, asserts that the ruined cities of Palenque and Uxmal have within themselves the evidences that the ocean has been their bed for thousands of years,' but the material is soft limestone and presents no water lines. Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, pp. 398-9. The work of an extinct race. Escalera and Llana, Méj. Hist. Descrip., p. 333; Valois, Mexique, p. 197; Wappäus, Mex. Guat., p. 247. Judging by decay since discovery, bright paint, comparison with German ruins, etc., they cannot date back of the Conquest. Sivers, Mittelamerika, pp. 237-47. 'All of them were the Work of the same People, or of Nations of the same Race, dating from a high antiquity, and in blood and language precisely the same Race, ... that was found in Occupation of the Country by the Spaniards, and who still constitute the great Bulk of the Population.' Squier, in Palacio, Carta, pp. 9-10. Copan and Quirigua preceded Palenque and Ococingo as the latter preceded the cities of Yucatan. Ib. 'The sculptures and temples of Central America are the work of the ancestors of the present Indians,' Tylor's Researches, pp. 189, 184. In age the ruins rank as follows: Copan, Utatlan, Uxmal, Mitla, Palenque. Edinburgh Review, July, 1867. 'Una antiguedad no ménos que antediluviana.' Registro Yuc., tom. i., p. 322, 'Approximative calculations, amounting to all but certainty ... would carry its origin as far back as twenty centuries at least.' Dem. Review, vol. i., p. 38. 'Ces ruines étaient déjà fort anciennes avant même que les Toltèques songeassent à quitter Tula.' Fossey, Mexique, p. 566. Founded by the Toltecs after they left Anahuac in the 11th century. They afterwards went to Yucatan. Morelet, Voyage, tom. i., pp. 269-70. Palenque much older than Yucatan according to the Katunes. Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., pp. 22-3, 103. Waldeck found a tree whose rings indicated an age of nearly 2000 years. Id., Palenqué, p. v. 'Il est probable qu'elles appartiennent à la première période de la civilization américaine.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 85, 87, 89. Copan built first, Palenque second, and Uxmal third. Jones' Hist. Anc. Amer., pp. 80, 72, 76. Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., p. 284, thinks it improbable that the foundation of Palenque dates back further than the 13th or 14th century; but he never saw the ruins and does not pretend to have any means of accurately determining their age.