writers on these subjects
concluded that the crosses found in Central America were positive proof
that St. Thomas had traveled through the country preaching the doctrines
of Christianity. The padres, who came to visit Mr. Stephens at the
ruins, "at the sight of it, immediately decided that the old inhabitants
of Palenque were Christians, and fixed the age of the buildings in the
third century."

Wilson finds in the tablets of the cross a strong argument for the
existence of a great Phoenician empire in Central America. This tablet
represents, he thinks, the sacrifice of a child to Astarte,<27> also
called Ashtoreth, the great female deity of the ancient Semitic nations
on both sides of the Euphrates, but chiefly of Phoenicia. The original
meaning of this word was "Queen of Heaven." Modern scholars do not think
these early speculations of the slightest worth. Dr. Charles Rau<28>
concludes that as reasonable a conjecture as any is the supposition that
it represents a sacrifice to the god of rain, made, perhaps, at a time
of drought, apparently influenced to that conclusion by the fact that
the natives of Cozumel regarded a cross in such a light,<29> and further
that a cross represents the moisture-bearing winds.

E. S. Holden<30> has made a critical study of the hieroglyphics of Copan
and Palenque. Though far from complete, most interesting results have
been obtained. We can not do more than set forth the results of his
investigations.<31> He concludes, from a careful study of the tablets
of the cross and of the sun, that in both the left-hand priests are
representatives of the god of war,<32> the right-hand priests being in
both representatives of the god of rain and water.<33> In Mexico these
deities frequently occupied the same temple.<34> He does not state his
conclusions in regard to the central figures in the tablets. Mr. Brinton
thinks the central figure in the tablet of the cross is a rebus for
the nature god Quetzalcohuatl. The cross was one of the symbols of
Quetzalcohuatl, as such signifying the four winds of which he was lord.
Another of his symbols was a bird. We notice the two symbols present in
the tablet. Mr. Holden also finds that the glyph standing for this god
occurs several times in the tables of hieroglyphics belonging to this
figure.

According to these last views, then, the old Palenquians seem to have
been a very religious people, and Quetzalcohuatl, the god of peace,
seems to have been their p