«In a few months there will be on show also a plaster cast of the tallest Maya monolith, known as the leading stela of Quirigua, Guatemala, which will be greatly admired for the fine carving. The deciphering of the Maya ruins is today the most important problem of archaeology, and Europe has long recognized it. Collections from Central America, if duly labelled as to their locality, are highly apreciated Collections without this information are almost worthless.

America has but recently awakened to the importance of these studies, and it is to be hoped that the interest evinced will become more widespread as soon as the public has more and improved opportunities to see and admire the exquisite art of the Maya sculpture. Extraordinary as it may seem, these objects have been carved with stone implements and obsidian flakes. There has never been found one implement of copper or bronze in the Maya ruins of Copan, and as the copper implements were made by Mexican tribes long before the Conquest, and as copper bells were especially common and to be seen in all parts of the continent, the absence of bells and copper working tools would prove that Copan was a ruin before the Mexicans began to manufacture in copper.

There are probably several cities, one underneath the other, at Copan, and by their excavation the development of Maya art could be clearly shown. A pyramid which is destined to solve many questions is the one standing at Cholula, in Mexico, formerly the centre of Toltec worship. There is today a Catholic church standing on the top of the pyramid, and beneath it could be found, I believe, temples which were built by the Toltecs. And, if my surmises are correct, their structure and the objects of art which will be found in them will determine the question which has been so much speculated upon: Who were the Toltecs, the originators of all Central American civilization? An American Schliemann is needen to help solve the riddle.

This nation reached its highest point before the development of power by the Mexicans, or Nahnas, who, by their longing for conquest, terminated the reign of the peaceful and artistic Mayas, whose doom began about 1000 A. D. and was completed long before the discovery of America. The most remarkable vestiges of this nation exist all over Yucatan, Chiapa and the Atlantic side of Guatemala as far south as Copan and Honduras. The finds made recently lead us to believe that Yucatan in prehistoric times was thickly populated, and that on the banks of the Usumainta River, in places which are now covered by an almost unbroken, dense virgin forest, at a low level above the sea and in a hot climate, there was developed the highest civilization of all the nations of this continent. There are a few scientists who believe that the culture of American indigenous races was brought to them from Asia; but there is no proof for this assertion beyond a -not at all remarkable- resemblance in the faces, the position of idols or the same type of rude ornamentation which may be seen all over the world. The only point which they can claim in favor of their theory is the finding of jade ornaments in the graves, a stone similar to the jade found in Central Asia. All search in America to find the mine or river-bed from which the ancients may have collected jade in a raw state has been fruitless.

There is not a better way of judging the standard of civilization of indigenous people than by the development of their art   —252→   of writing. Primitive man had no desire to write; he had nothing to preserve, no knowledge to hand down. Only when men had settled down in huts and houses, had cultivated fields, when there existed a government and priesthood, did writing become a need, and those people whose writing comes nearest to our phonetic or spelling system were the highest advanced nation. The Peruvians, named Incas, and the Mexicans, Nahnas, excelled in barbaric grandeur and were highly trained in all that pertained to war; but they were far inferior to the Maya nation in all the arts, especially in writing.»

«On the sides and at the back appear the different Maya gods, especially the snake, representing time and eternity, and hieroglyphic tables are shown beginning always with the initial series which specifies a certain date. The object of science must be in a large measure to collect good and accurate material to enable the scholar to make comparisons, so that the hieroglyphics may be properly interpreted: and while I think that careful study will make much in that line clear, I believe that some glyphs will remain undeciphered until more documents are discovered in the libraries of Spain or Central America.»

«But by far the most important discoveries, after Maudslay, were made by the excavators at Copan, Honduras, by the Peabody Museum, of Cambridge, under the direction of Professor F. W. Putnam, of Harvard University. This work was made possible by the liberal help of prominent and science-loving Bostonians. All these explorations have helped greatly in getting new material together, but it is of no use for science if it is not accurately published in a form that students may afford to purchase.»