FOKSTKMANN.] RECENT MAYA INVESTIGATIONS 543 



was checked in the south by the Spaniards and by the Mexican influ- 

 ence which came with them. It pr()])ably had not histed very long, 

 if my opinion, expressed in Zur Entzifferung der Mayahandschriften, 

 IV, page 9, that the stelae of Copan do not date further back than the 

 fifteenth century is found to be correct. 



There may occasionalh^ be an isolated Aztec name that strayed 

 into northern Yucatan ; I am reminded of Mayapan, lying southeast 

 from Merida, for names ending in pan are Aztec. It remains to be 

 proved whether the narratives of the old native chroniclers, who 

 attach sjDecial importance to this Mayapan, throw any further light 

 on that matter. 



I expect, hoAvever, the most light in reference to Yucatan from the 

 investigations Avhich Teobert Maler is carrying out on a gigantic 

 scale, of which the Globus, volume 68, images 245 to "250 and 277 to 

 292, gives such brilliant evidences. It is to be hoped that the results 

 of these investigations will soon appear as a whole." 



After concluding this article I received the eighth j^ublication of 

 the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago, which forms the first 

 number of the anthropological series. It has the special title 

 Archaeological Studies Among the Ancient Cities of Mexico, hy 

 William H. Holmes, part 1 (Monuments of Yucatan), Chicago, 

 1895. The author here treats of the first part of a three months' 

 journey, from December, 1894, to February, 1895, to Yucatan, Chia- 

 pas, and Oaxaca, and describes first Avhat he saw of Maya ruins in 

 the little explored region of northeastern Yucatan, from Cape Ca- 

 toche to Tulum, and in the islands off that coast, Cozumel. Mugeres, 

 etc. ; then follows an account of a brief visit to Uxmal, Izamal, and 

 Chichen-Itza. The rest of the journey (Palenque, Oaxaca) is re- 

 served for a later number. The whole is a very welcome report on 

 the extant buildings, together with a very clear survey of Maya 

 architecture in general, which verifies and supplements much that is 

 already known. I wish especially to mention the large number of 

 illustrations accompanying it, among which I call particular atten- 

 tion to the plans of the site of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza and a general 

 view of the ruins, which for the first time give us a really clear com- 

 prehension of these magnificent ruined piles. 



"They have beeu published as a Memoir of the Peabody Museum, vol. II, n. 2, C. T. 



