622 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 28 



peninsula as the true center of Central American civilization. There 

 the origin of American glyphic writing is doubtless to be sought; 

 there lie the roots of that ancient culture. 



It is difficult to conjecture what race may have been the bearer of 

 this civilization. The evidence points to its having been a branch of 

 the Mayas. In Landa's time the flower of that ancient civilization 

 was evidently long past ; no trace of the earlier vigorous development 

 remained; the old intellectual activity manifested itself but feebly; 

 opposition to foreign influences was therefore extremely weak. Even 

 then, according to the statements of Spanish authors, certain build- 

 ings in Yucatan already wore an air of belonging to a bygone time; 

 some were probably even then deserted and buried in the primeval 

 forest. There is hardly a doubt that even at the time of the conquest 

 ruined cities existed south of Yucatan, in Guatemala and Chiapas, 

 as they do to-day. Long before the coming of the Spaniards abo- 

 riginal civilization must have reached its highest point in that region, 

 Avithin a square approximately bounded by the fourteenth and eight- 

 eenth degrees of latitude and the eighty-eighth and ninety-second 

 degrees of longitude. It is doubtful whether all the so-called Maya 

 antiquities originated among the Mayas of Yucatan. The manu- 

 scripts perhaps came from the region indicated above (Tzental?), 

 and imdoubtedly also a large part of the antiquities in the Berlin 

 Museum of Ethnology. They can scarcely have originated in 

 northern Yucatan. They are evidences and relics of the influence 

 of a higher civilization which flourished long before in the south." 



« Sinca the publication of this paper in 1890 important advances have been made in 

 the field of Maya research. These are known to the specialists in Americanist lore. 

 Nevertheless, these comparative studies may still prove to be of value to-day in their 

 general results to the investigator because, although these general results themselves 

 have as a whole been controverted or called in question, they have not been materially 

 modified by later investigations. The main purpose of the foregoing essay, which was to 

 present a comparative survey of the details of the Maya antiquities, will be fulfilled even 

 to-day, so much the more since there has unfortunately been no augmentation of material 

 worth mentioning, certainly no new discovery of antiquities that can alter essentially 

 the results reached then. P. Schellhas, Berlin, February, 1905. 



