Most of the vibrant murals that greeted
the conquistadors were quickly destroyed. Even those excavated by
archaeologists were often lost to the elements or the hands of myriad
careless visitors. Among the lost were the following murals excavated
at Chichen Itza, Mexico, in the 1920s. Although the archaeologists were
only equipped to take black and white photographs, expedition member
Ann Axtell Morris painted these 1/4 and 1/5 scale color copies and
included them in their report. The full series appears to show a naval
battle with blonde foreigners. The strangers are all killed or captured
and then sacrificed:
