hospital of San Lazaro is said to date in part from the time of the Cid (q.v.), who here married Ximena in 1074.
Much has been done for education. Palencia has also hospitals, a foundling refuge, barracks and a bull-ring. Local industries include iron-founding, and the making of rugs, alcohol, leather, soap, porcelain, linen, cotton, wool, machinery and matches.
Palencia, the Pallantia of Strabo and Ptolemy, was the chief town of the Vaccaei. Its history during the Gothic and Moorish periods is obscure; but it was a Castilian town of some importance in the 12th and 13th centuries. The university founded here in 1208 by Alphonso IX. was removed in 1239 to Salamanca.
PALENQUE, the modern name of a deserted city in Mexico, in the narrow valley of the Otolum, in the north part of the state
of Chiapas, 80 m. S. of the Gulf port of Carmen. About 30 m.
away, on the left bank of the Usumacinta river, stand the ruins
of Men-ché or Lorillard city. The original name of Palenque
has been lost, and its present name is taken from the neighbouring
village, Santo Domingo del Palenque. Unlike the dead cities
of the Yucatan plains, Palenque is surrounded by wooded hills
and overgrown by tropical vegetation.
There is less stone carving on the exterior walls, door jambs and pillars of the buildings than on those of the Yucatan Peninsula; this is due to the harder and more uneven character of the limestone. Probably owing to the same cause, there is less cut stone in the walls, the Palenque builders using plaster to obtain smooth surfaces. There is, however, considerable carving on the interior walls, the best specimens being on the tablets, affixed to the walls with plaster. Modelling in stucco was extensively used. A few terra-cotta images have been found. Paint and coloured washes were liberally used to cover plastered surfaces and for ornamentation, and paints seem to have been used to bind plastered surfaces. The Palenque builders apparently used nothing but stone tools in their work.
The so-called Great Palace consists of a group of detached buildings, apparently ten in number, standing on two platforms of different elevations. Some of the interior structures and the detached one on the lower southern terrace are in a fair state of preservation. The plan of construction shows three parallel walls enclosing two corridors covered with the peculiar pointed arches or vaults characteristic of Palenque. The buildings appear to have been erected at different periods. A square tower rises from a central part of the platform to a height of about 40 ft., divided into a solid masonry base and three storeys connected by interior stairways. The Temple of Inscriptions, one of the largest and best preserved, is distinguished chiefly for its tablets, which contain only hieroglyphics. Sculptured slabs form balustrades to the steps leading up to the temple, and its exterior is ornamented with figures in stucco, the outer faces of the four pillars in front having life-size figures of women with children in their arms. The small Temple of Beau Relief stands on a narrow ledge of rock against the steep slope of the mountain. Its most important feature is a large stucco bas-relief, occupying a central position on the back wall of the sanctuary. It consists of a single figure, seated on a throne, beautifully modelled both in form, drapery and ornaments, with the face turned to one side and the arms outstretched, and is reproduced by H. H. Bancroft. The temples on the east side of the Otolum are distinguished by tall narrow vaults, perforated by numerous square openings giving the appearance of coarse lattice work. The Temple of the Sun stands upon a comparatively low pyramidal foundation. The interior consists of the usual pair of vaulted corridors. The sacred tablet on the back wall of the sanctuary is carved in low relief in limestone, and consists of two figures, apparently a priest and his assistant making offerings. There are rows of hieroglyphics on the sides and over the central design. The Temple of the Cross is a larger structure of similar design and construction. The tablet belonging to this temple has excited controversy, because the design contains a representation of a Latin cross. The Temple of the Cerro, called that of the Cross No. 2, because its tablet is very similar to that just mentioned.
stands back against the slope of the mountain, and is in great part a ruin. (For history and further details see Central America; § Archaeology.)
PALERMO (Greek, Πάνορμος; Latin, Panhormus, Panormus), a city of Sicily, capital of a province of the same name,
in the kingdom of Italy, and the see of an archbishop. Pop.
(1906), town 264,036, commune 323,747. The city stands
in the N.W. of the island, on a small bay looking E., the coast
forming the chord of a semicircle of mountains which hem in
the campagna of Palermo, called the Conca d’Oro. The most
striking point is the mountain of Hiercte, now called Pellegrino
(from the grotto of Santa Rosalia, a favourite place of pilgrimage)
at the N. of this semicircle; at the S.E. is the promontory of
Zaffarano, on which stood Soluntum (q.v.).
A neolithic settlement and necropolis were discovered in 1897 at the foot of Monte Pellegrino, on the N.E. side (E. Salinas in Notizie degli Scavi, 1907, 307). Palermo has been commonly thought to be an original Phoenician settlement of unknown date (though its true Phoenician name is unknown), but Holm (Archivio storio siciliano, 1880, iv. 421) has suggested that the settlement was originally Greek.[1] There is no record of any Greek colonies in that part of Sicily, and Panormus certainly was Phoenician as far back as history can carry us. According to Thucydides (vi. 2), as the Greeks colonized the E. of the island, the Phoenicians withdrew to the N.W., and concentrated themselves at Panormus, Motye, and Soluntum. Like the other Phoenician colonies in the west, Panormus came under the power of Carthage, and became the head of the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily. As such it became the centre of that strife between Europe and Africa, between Aryan and Semitic man, in its later stages between Christendom and Islam, which forms the great interest of Sicilian history. As the Semitic head of Sicily, it stands opposed to Syracuse, the Greek head. Under the Carthaginian it was the head of the Semitic part of Sicily; when, under the Saracen all Sicily came under Semitic rule, it was the chief seat of that rule. It was thrice won for Europe, by Greek, Roman and Norman conquerors—in 276 B.C. by the Epirot king Pyrrhus, in 254 B.C. by the Roman consuls Aulus Atilius and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, and in A.D. 1071 by Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger, the first count of Sicily. After the conquest by Pyrrhus the city was soon recovered by Carthage, but this first Greek occupation was the beginning of a connexion with western Greece and its islands which was revived under various forms in later times. After the Roman conquest an attempt to recover the city for Carthage was made in 250 B.C., which led only to a great Roman victory (see Punic Wars). Later, in the First Punic War, Hamilcar Barca was encamped for three years on Hiercte or Pellegrino, but the Roman possession of the city was not disturbed. Panormus received the privileges of autonomy and immunity from taxation. It seems probable that at the end of the republic the coinage for the west of Sicily was struck here (Mommsen, Röm. Münzwesen, 665). A colony was sent here by Augustus, and the place remained of considerable importance, though inferior to Catana. A fortunate chance has preserved to us a large number of the inscriptions set up in the Forum (Mommsen, Corpus inscr. lat. x. 752). The town was taken by the Vandal Genseric in A.D. 440. It afterwards became a part of the East-Gothic dominion, and was recovered for the empire by Belisarius in 535. It again remained a Roman possession for exactly three hundred years, till it was taken by the Saracens in 835. Panormus now became the Moslem capital. In 1062 the Pisan fleet broke through the chain of the harbour and carried off much spoil, which was spent on the building of the great church of Pisa. After the Norman conquest the city remained for a short time in the hands of the dukes of Apulia. But in 1093 half the city was ceded to Count Roger, and in 1122 the rest was ceded to the second Roger. When he took the kingly title in 1130 it became “Prima sedes, corona regis, et regni caput.”
- ↑ The coins bearing the name of םחנח are no longer assigned to Panormus; but certain coins with the name צייז (Zîz; about 410 B.C.) belong to it.
