One of the most interesting ruins of British Honduras consists of a huge mound near Benque Viejo, sixty feet high and built of limestone, which supports a three storeyed stone building. This is surrounded by three others of similar type, at the foot of each of which is a plain stone monolith, recalling the plain stelæ mentioned above, which doubtless were once ornamented with painted designs. The ruins of this site probably belong to the same series as Tikal, Naranjo, Seibal, etc., and though more excavation, combined with accurate surveying, is necessary before we can speak with confidence regarding the monuments of British Honduras as a whole, we may assume that they fall into two classes, viz. ruins connected with the early central Maya area, those to the north of British Honduras at Tulum being in part a "provincial" extension of the early culture,[1] and later edifices which owed their birth to Toltec influence filtered southward through Yucatan.
In the west of the Maya area, the remains, though plentiful, are inferior in quality, and have not attracted the attention of explorers to the extent which their importance, as indicating the spread of Maya culture, and its relation to that of Oaxaca, deserves. Sacchana and its neighbourhood is a site of great interest, since Seler has discovered there two stone slabs bearing initial dates in the Maya style, falling just each side of the date at Chichen Itza, which is otherwise the latest known. The style of these slabs is rude and decadent, but they are of the highest importance as indicating that the early method of reckoning time had spread as far west at least as the department of Huehuetenango. Otherwise the remains of this district are rude and coarsely built, of unsquared blocks usually without mortar; but mortar is found in some cases, notably in the tlaxtli-courts, which, as well as the pyra-
- ↑ The qualification is necessary, since Tulum appears to have been inhabited at the conquest.
