[Aztlan] Palenque Mystery Partly Solved!

[Elaine Schele]

Dear Friends,

To follow up on my last message, I found Del Rio's original Spanish
report buried in a document called "Diccionario universal de historia
y de Geografía" edited by Lucas Alamán published in 1855 under the
title of "Casas de Piedra" on page 528 of that document.  I found and
downloaded it in Google Books and it is located here in case you are
interested: http://tinyurl.com/9wkx5u.

Even though Cabrera did take liberties when he translated this
original into Spanish, the passage about a the "challa" projectile
being in the shape of a heart is CORRECT.  Since I was curious as to
what a heart might look like to a 18th century Spaniard, I did some
research on the real shape of human heart and found a diagram that I
can compare to the obsidian point found at the Madrid Museum.  I have
created a document that can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/elaineschele/DelRioCacheObjects#5284142349650539538.
 I think that we have a match.  Perhaps Del Rio connected this shape
with a human heart due to his knowledge of reports by previous Spanish
explorers that heart sacrifice was a common thing for indigenous
Mesoamericans and the Cross Group buildings are obviously temples of
worship.

Returning again to Del Rio's report, here are his exact words
regarding the cache objects in question (according to this
publication): "...dos pequenas piramides conicas con la figura de un
corazon de una peidra oscura cristalizada, muy comun en este reino, y
conocida con el nombre de challa"... (made of obsidian, in other
words).

What I am still pondering upon is what Del Rio was describing when he
wrote "dos pequenas piramides and how would the heart have been
attached or associated with them?

Best wishes,
Elaine
http://gispalenque.blogspot.com/
http://volunteermayameetings.blogspot.com/