448 AISriiTUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



portant first step in tlie attempt to solve the problems of Mayan 

 history, but unfortunately this achievement is not an open sesame to 

 the full story of the monuments of the ancient civilization. Each 

 of the great carved monoliths is a greater riddle than the Egyptian 

 Sphinx. There is no short cut to the unfolding of their story, and 

 archeology must take up the tedious but fascinating task. 



With the monuments before us and a limited number of dates to 

 begin with, we seek to fill out the outline thus meagerly sketched. 

 We are doubtless safe in assuming that early in the Christian era 

 certain groups of the American race, rising distinctly above the 

 general level of barbarism, began the construction of stone build- 

 ings and the carving of monuments devoted to the service of their 

 gods. They flourished for a few centuries only, and had passed the 

 zenith of their cultural development long before the Spanish con- 

 querors in the sixteenth century penetrated the tropical forests of 

 Central America. Numerous important cities that had arisen were 

 abandoned and in ruins and their story wholly forgotten by the 

 decadent generations of the Columbian period. 



THE RUINS OF QUIRIGUA. 



The ancient Maya city, now known as Quirigua, is represented 

 to-day by a group of enigmatical stone monuments only recently 

 retrieved from the dense tropical forest which has buried them for 

 unnumbered centuries. These monuments comprise a large number 

 of buildings and monolithic sculptures. Such buildings as remain 

 are in an advanced state of ruin, while others are represented by 

 mere mounds and platforms of stone and earth. The sculptures are 

 scattered over the various courts and plazas, and bear mute testi- 

 mony to the high state of culture achieved by the people during 

 the period of their ascendancy — a period assigned by Morley to the 

 early centuries of the Christian era. The monolithic sculptures are 

 of two classes — tall, slender shafts known as stelse, thought to have 

 special chronological significance, and low, massive forms sometimes 

 referred to as altars. 



The stelae are 13 in number and range from 11 to 26 feet in height. 

 They are elaborately carved with representations of richly appareled 

 personages, both male and female, with associated symbolic devices 

 and glyphic inscriptions. The massive monuments are 20 in number 

 and are extremely diversified in sculptural treatment and in the 

 subject matter embodied. It is assumed, with a high degree of proba- 

 bility, that the entire group of monuments was the seat of the 

 religious establishment or establishments of the city. All monuments 

 of perishable material and all nonmonumental portions of the city 

 have long since disappeared. 



