File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17539335503).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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entire Group of the Ball Court and the Group of the Columns date in all probability from the foreign regime and con- sequently cannot have been erected before the last quarter of the twelfth century. The architecture of these buildings as well as the sculptures show strong resemblances to work in Tula, Teotihuacqji and other sites in the valley of Mexico. The native religion seems to have suffered from the foreign infusion also. New forms appear in the religious art and it is not unlikely that the human sacrifice at the Sacred Cenote was in- augurated by the intruders. The game played in the Ball Court seems not to have been known by the Maya in earlier times, and indeed the only examples of ball courts in Yucatan are seen at Chi- chen Itza and Uxmal. This, in brief, is the story of Chichen Itza.^ Founded when the Huns under Attila were battling with the failing armies of Rome, it was abandoned for the first time when Mohammed was laying the leaven of Arab conquest. Reestablished in the era of the Saxon kings, it flourished during the Crusades and lost its freedom to a foreign power when our fathers were struggling for the Magna Charta, and sank into oblivion while the English and French fought out the Hundred Years' War. Surely a city with such a history can hardly be dismissed as void of interest and inspira- tion. 1 For a more detailed account of this and other points in Maya history see a Study of Maya Art by Herbert J. Spinden in Memoirs of the Pea- body Museum of American Arcliaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, vol. VI, Cam- bridge, Mass., 1913
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A human-like head in the distended mouth) of a plumed monster. The claws of the monster are seen at the bottom and between them hangs the great forked tongue.

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