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Show Keeping Up Z(y Sccnce S er tvce Science Service. WNU Service. Jaguar Throne at Chichen Itza Is Carefully Guarded Spectacular Find in Ruined Mayan City Washington. Tourists who visit the ruined Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Yucatan are allowed to see but not sit in the polka-dotted red Jaguar throne recently discovered by archeologists. The Carnegie institution of Washington, Wash-ington, which conducted the excavations, exca-vations, calls this throne, and objects ob-jects with it, "the most spectacular discovery of archeological specimens speci-mens In original position ever made in the New World." Mexican authorities, says the Carnegie Car-negie institution, have wisely decided decid-ed not to remove the throne from the place in the temple, exactly where Indian officials placed it centuries cen-turies ago. A glass protects the throne, and lights have been installed in-stalled so that the fresh colors and snarling face of the stone jaguar may be seen and appreciated. Throne, Not an Altar. The animal is painted red, with large apple-green spots of jade inlaid, in-laid, and green jade eyes. Its flat back forms a throne seat, in the opinion of Dr. Sylvanus G. Morley of the Carnegie staff. Dr. Morley disagrees with the view that the jaguar was used as an altar. The jaguar discovery was made in the famous temple called El Castillo, Cas-tillo, or the Castle, a ruined building build-ing perched on a lofty pyramid. Recent Re-cent excavations have revealed that temple and pyramid were enlarged and built over by ambitious Indians. Indi-ans. The visible ruins thus encase an earlier temple on its pyramid base. It was within the hidden temple, tem-ple, in an inner chamber, that the red stone jaguar was found well preserved. A tunnel enables visitors to go to the inner stairway and climb the buried pyramid to the throne-room where warrior cults of Yucatan probably held barbaric rites. Association of the Jaguar throne with the warriors is deduced from the fact that this large and fierce American wildcat was the symbolic sym-bolic animal of the warrior class in the centuries just before Spanish conquest. This is the era to which the temple belongs. |