This is the period of the true Mayan Renaissance. Under the peaceful conditions and general prosperity brought about by the league, art and archi tecture revived.Great buildings of cut stone, elaborately decorated with sculptures, were put up on every side.No town or village was so small and unimportant as not to boast its pyramid-temple and chief's house built of stone.It was in every sense a true Renaissance, and under its quickening influence the Mayan esthetic instinct blossomed forth anew."Chichen Itza does not seem to have felt this stimulation as strongly as her sister state, Uxmal, for example, although there are a number of buildings at the Itzan capital which date from this periodthe Akab'tzib (House of the Dark Writing), the Chichanchob (Red House), the House of the Deer, and parts of the Monjas (nunnery)in fact, most of the middle section of the city, that part lying south and west of the Group of the Thousand Columns."But not yet had Chichen Itza reached her greatest development, her crown ing glory as the Holy City of the Maya. This was not to come until another turn in the wheel of fate had brought her under the heel of a foreign conqueror and the Itzan people had been made to feel the gall and bitterness of foreign rulers and a foreign religion."In 1201 a.d. the political structure of the peninsula was shaken to its foundations and the League of Mayapan violently disrupted by war within itself.In that year Hunnac Ceel, the ruler of Mayapan, made war upon Chac Xib Chac (the Very Red Man), the Itzan luler, because of 'certain banquetings with the ruler of Izamal,' according to one of the chronicles (we should, perhaps, read here conspiracies), and by the aid of Toltec-Aztec allies from central Mexico inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Holy Men of the Itza."The chronicles do not enlighten us further as to what end overtook the 'Very Red Man.' Perhaps he fell fighting bravely, as his name might imply, in the defense of his capital. Concerning the fate of the city itself, however, arche ology leaves us in little doubt. From this time onward until its final abandon ment, in 1448, Chichen Itza was held in thrall by foreign rulers, the Toltec-Aztec allies of Hunnac Ceel."This foreign influence from the distant Vale of Anahuac gave to the city not only new rulers, but also new customs, new esthetic inspirations, a new architecture, even a new religion, all of which reacted powerfully upon the Itza people and raised their capital to a position of honor and sanctity never enjoyed by it or any other Mayan city before or since."The conquerors brought with them the worship of the fair golden-haired god, Quetzalcoatl, the 'Feathered Serpent.'Removed to Chichen Itza, this Toltec Zeus became Kukulcan, a direct Mayan translation of Quetzalcoatl; and presently all over the northern part of the city, which dates principally from this last period, temples and sanctuaries were rising to the new god, all adorned with highly realistic representations of the Feathered Serpentin columns, balus trades, cornices, and bas-r...