Note 83 — Chapter XV · Palenque.—The Forest.—The Palace or Monastery.—Night at Palenque.—Brilliancy of the light of the fireflies.—Pyramidal Mounds and Temples.—Tablet of the Cross.—Hieroglyphs.—An Indian Statue.—Antiquity of the Buildings.—The Tower.—Stucco Ornamentation.—Action of the tropical climate upon the Ruins.—Note upon the decipherment of the hieroglyphic characters.
Reading edition
The areas occupied by the temples differed considerably in their extent. The largest of them which I measured was that of the Temple of the Cross.
Its interior dimensions were forty-three feet seven inches long by twenty-five feet four inches deep; the outer walls were three feet thick. Therefore the ground space covered by the building was nearly fifty feet in frontage and a little more than thirty-one feet in depth. Its exterior height was about twenty feet. The measurements of the temple on the adjoining pyramid were less.