Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/87

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UXMAL, THE RUINED CITY.

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"ELEPHANT TRUNKS."

spread before us from the open door. There is one feature about the Yucatan architecture that has caused almost as much wrangling among archaeologists as the celebrated "calendar stone," and that is the "Maya arch," made without a keystone. By producing a photographic reproduction of that in the southern end of the eastern façade, my readers will see at once its shape, its symmetry, and the method of formation. Arches exist in all the ruins, notably one figured by Stephens at Kabah, which, standing solitary in its massiveness, reminded him of the Arch of Titus. Another peculiarity of the sculptor's art, also, is the so-called "elephant trunk," shown in the photograph of