Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/258

238 summit-lines resemble an inverted praoe, or boat, is the fabled home of the gods; and the whole sacred height was once built over with temples, staircases of a thousand steps, great terraces, and embankment walls, now nearly lost in vegetation, and wrecked by the earthquakes of that very active volcanic region. These Dieng temples appear to have been solid structures, whose general form and ornamentation so resemble the ruins in Yucatan and the other states of Central America that archæologists still revolve the puzzle of them, and hazard no conjectures as to the worshipers and their form of worship, save that the rites or sacrifices were very evidently conducted on the open summits or temple-tops. I could not obtain views of these ruined pyramid temples from any of the Batavia photographers, to satisfy me as to their exact lines even in decay. There are other old Siva temples in that region furtively worshiped still, and the "Valley of Death," where the fabled upas grew, was long believed to exist in that region, where the cult of the destroyer was observed.

M. de Charnay did not visit these pyramid temples of the Dieng plateau; but after seeing the temple of Boro Boeder, and those at Brambanam, he summed up the resemblances of the Buddhist and Brahmanic temples of Java to those at Palenque and in Yucatan as consisting: in the same order of gross idols; the pyramid form of temple, with staircases, like those of Palenque and Yucatan; the small chapels or oratories, with subterranean vaults beneath the idols; the same interior construction of temples; the stepped arches; the details of ornamentation, terraces, and esplanades,