It is a point of no little interest that these old constructions belong
to different periods in the past, and represent somewhat different
phases of civilization. Uxmal, which is supposed to have been partly
inhabited when the Spaniards arrived in the country, is plainly much
more modern than Copan or Palenque. This is easily traced in the ruins.
Its edifices were finished in a different style, and show fewer
inscriptions. Round pillars, somewhat in the Doric style, are found at
Uxmal, but none like the square, richly-carved pillars, bearing
inscriptions, discovered in some of the other ruins. Copan and Palenque,
and even Kabah, in Yucatan, may have been very old cities, if not
already old ruins, when Uxmal was built. Accepting the reports of
explorers as correct, there is evidence in the ruins that Quirigua is
older than Copan, and that Copan is older than Palenque. The old
monuments in Yucatan represent several distinct epochs in the ancient
history of that peninsula. Some of them are kindred to those hidden in
the great forest, and remind us more of Palenque than of Uxmal. Among
those described, the most modern, or most of these, are in Yucatan; they
belong to the time when the kingdom of the Mayas flourished. Many of the
others belong to ages previous to the rise of this kingdom; and in ages
still earlier, ages older than the great forest, there were other
cities, doubtless, whose remains have perished utterly, or were long ago
removed for use in the later constructions.
The evidence of repeated reconstructions in some of the cities before
they were deserted has been pointed out by explorers. I have quoted what
Charnay says of it in his description of Mitla. At Palenque, as at
Mitla, the oldest work is the most artistic and admirable. Over this
feature of the monuments, and the manifest signs of their difference in
age, the attention of investigators has lingered in speculation. They
find in them a significance which is stated as follows by Brasseur de
Bourbourg: "Among the edifices forgotten by time in the forests of
Mexico and Central America, we find architectural characteristics so
different from each other, that it is as impossible to attribute them
all to the same people as to believe they were all built at the same
epoch." In his view, "the substructions at Mayapan, some of those at
Tulha, and a great part of those at Palenque," are among the older
remains. These are not the oldest cities whose remains are still
visible, but they may have been built, in part, upon the foundations of
cities much more ancient.