64 RESEARCH AT THE RUINS OF CHICHEN ITZA, YUCATAN. 



THE AREA COVERED BY THE MAYA CIVILIZATION. 



The region occupied by the Maya was the low Atlantic coastal plain in 

 what are now the northern parts of Honduras and Guatemala, all of British 

 Honduras, and the Gulf States of southern Mexico, an area approximately 

 500 miles north and south by 300 miles east and west. (See Plate 12.) 



The southern part of this region is abundantly watered by a network of 

 streams, which have their rise in the Cordillera, while the northern part, com- 

 prising the peninsula of Yucatan, is entirely lacking in such water-courses and 

 were it not for large natural wells found here and there it would be unin- 

 habitable. ^ In the south the country is densely forested, though occasional 

 savannas break the monotony of the tropical jungles. The surface is rolling 

 and is traversed in places by ranges of hills, which in British Honduras rise to 

 a maximum elevation of 3,700 feet above the sea-level." In the north the 

 nature of the soil and the scarcity of water are not favorable to the growth of 

 a luxuriant vegetation, and this region is therefore covered with a smaller 

 forest growth and a sparser Inish than the area to the south. The deer, 

 monkey, tapir, peccary, jaguar, and numerous other mammals are abundant 

 throughout the entire region and doubtless formed a large part of the food 

 supply in ancient times. The climate is tropical. There are two seasons, 

 the rainy and the dry, the former corresponding roughly to our summer and 

 autumn, and the latter to our winter and spring. At present there are over 

 twenty different tribes, representing more than a million people, who speak 

 dialects of the Maya language. It might be added in this connection that in 

 spite of the loss of their former glory the Maya still remain the finest abo- 

 riginal people of North America. 



THE ANCIENT MAYA. 



The ancient Maya probably emerged from savagery about 2,000 years 

 ago, at least their earliest-dated monuments can not assuredly be referred 

 to a more remote period, and any estimate as to how much time before that 

 had been required to develop their complex calendar and hieroglyphic system 

 to the point of graphic record is only conjectural. One thing alone is cer- 

 tain : a long interval must have elapsed from the first crude and unrelated 

 scratches of savagery to the elaborate and highly involved hieroglyphics 

 found on the earUest monuments. 



By the end of the second century a. d., the Maya had emerged from 

 savagery and were at the threshold of civilization. There then began an 

 extraordinary development throughout the southern part of the area. City 

 after city sprang into prominence, each contributing by its growth to the 

 general uplift. During this period all of the great southern cities flourished: 

 Tikal, Copan, Palenque, Naranjo, Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan, Quirigua, and 



'These large natural wells, often 200 feet in diameter, are called by the IMaya cenolcs. 



•Victoria Peak, in the Cockscomb Mountains of British Honduras, is said to reach this elevation. 



