RESEARCH AT THE RUINS OF CHICHEN ITZA, YUCATAN. 79 



NATURE OF THE PROJECT HEREIN PRESENTED. 



The project herein submitted to the Carnegie Institution of Washington 

 contemplates an exhaustive study of the ruins of Chichen Itza. This study 

 would depend largely on excavation, but photography, mapping, drawing, 

 and molding should be utilized as well. The ruins at Chichen Itza divide 

 naturally into different groups of more or less closely related structures, each 

 group constituting a well-defined unit of work.' Such are: the Ball Court 

 group (Plates 3b, 5, and 14h), the Monjas group (Plates 7, 8, 9, 10, and Plate 

 14 A, B, c, E, F, and g); the group of the Columns (Plate 14 j), etc. 



It is recommended to excavate this ancient city, group by group, until it 

 is completely uncovered and the relations of its component parts are dis- 

 closed. This method has another obvious advantage: By dividing the 

 whole research into a number of units, it will be possible to issue fairly com- 

 plete reports covering finished units every four or five years. Such reports 

 would constitute a progressive commentary on the progress of the research. 

 It is confidently expected that important contributions to the study of Maya 

 architecture, sculpture, painting, ceramics, chronology, and hieroglyphic 

 writing will result from these excavations. Indeed, it is practically certain 

 that the knowledge of these subjects will be greatly extended as the work of 

 excavation advances.^ 



Accompanying the work of excavation, a reasonable amount of repair 

 and restoration should be done. The time has passed when a scientific 

 expedition can rifle a site of its specimens and then retire, leaving weakened 

 buildings to fall under the destructive action of the elements. To-day the 

 best practice in archfeological work demands that walls weakened by exca- 

 vation shall be permanently repaired, and that any really important site 

 must be left in as good condition after excavation as it was found to be 

 before. This obligation is always binding in any tropical environment, 

 but particularly so when the site excavated is one of the largest and most 

 magnificent cities of aboriginal America. At Chichen Itza, moreover, the 

 need of repair work is especially urgent. Scarcely a rainy season passes that 

 some elaborately sculptured facade, loosened by the roots of clinging vegeta- 

 tion, does not fall. The whole front of the Castillo, the chief temple at 

 Chichen Itza (see Plate 3 a), is a case in point. The wooden lintels of the 

 main doorway arc gradually giving way under the tremendous weight of the 

 superimposed masonry, and unless repairs are speedily made this beautiful 

 example of INIaya temple architecture will suffer irreparably. Examples of 

 this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, but the one given above is suffi- 



^For an incomplete list of these groups and the structures composing them, see Appendix III, p. 89. 



^ A case in point is the Monjas (A, Plate 14 and Plates 7, 8, and 9). This building clearly dates from 

 several different epochs, the addition shown in Plate 8 being one of the latest. Several styles of decoration 

 appear in the four or five different additions, which together make up the building, and excavation would 

 doubtless establish their chronological sequence. This chronological sequence of style, once determined, 

 would serve as a guide in establishing the relative ages of buildings which show only a single style of decoration'. 



