We broke up the trip to Palenque... spent a night in a nowhere town called Ocosingo... Descended some metres into territory hot and creeping... terrain tall and green and lush. We got a room... something like a prison cell... we ate and worked and slept. In the morning we took a bus to Tonina... ancient Maya ruins built into the hillside... they ascend on platforms... some rundown old castle... some rambling fortification... crumbling and split with chambers, tunnels, rooms... tombs, walkways, temples... the thing rose up a grey and crushing monument.
Tonina was the downfall of Palenque... the enemy city... the opposing cult. The scholars have identified a few phases in the place's history. Between 300 and 700 AD, an underworld religion dominated... Lords of Hellish realms ruled... worship focussed about underworld birds, flayed suns, celestial lights and deities of time. In the 7th century, there came a change of leadership, dynasty. The Snake Skull-Jaguar clan came to the fore... refashioned the city anew... declared war on Palenque and won... decapitated enemy leaders and rose to glory. Felines and the evening stars ruled. The final phase in the city's life came in 900 AD... the place was yet again remodelled, rebuilt, recast. The last recorded ruler came in 903 AD... like so many of the ancient places, it was myteriously abandoned.
The city was like this:
It climbed by platforms, terraces, various structures set at points of ascension. A dark labyrinth occupied a place to the right... ominous tunnels broken by shafts... windows like crosses or squares... the ceiling high and formed by a lofty triangle. Climbing higher into the city... there came a geometrical staircase, a 'greca'... a zig-zag 'X' (... possibly Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent). Close to the 'greca'... staircases, tunnels, passages... sprawling and turning and rising and falling... the old administrative core of the city. Ascending another level... there came the mural of the four eras... some gruesome dedication... decapitated heads spurting blood and sunshine... each head a sun, an era, a lifewave or race of people... A skeleton danced with a giant rodent. Above all this stood the acropolis... a complex of temples set upon two levels... four upon each with various dedications including one to the earth monster and one to war. Tonina had dark and bloody vibrations.