INTRODUCTION. 5 



nowhere blazoned in the inscriptions, it must not be supposed that these records are 

 entirely unprofitable. They enable us to restore practically the whole scheme of 

 Maya chronology. The minimum duration, at least, of the flourishing state of each 

 city is shown by the extreme dates of its monuments, and by similar comparison is to 

 be ascertained the relative eras of the palmy days of the different cities. 



But a circumstance more important than the duration or comparative ages of cities 



is revealed by the inscriptions. One of the most momentous events that could 



transpire in the history of a people occurred in the very heart of the period chronicled. 



We Americans, with our anniversary craze, who lie in wait to celebrate the least 



significant event, who strutted in pride at our own centennary and but recently went 



wild over a lot of mere quadru-centennials, should be able to appreciate somewhat the 



feeling that must have stirred our equally excitable forerunners on that occasion. All 



the centennials that we in our most gorgeous dreams might hope to celebrate would 



fade to insignificance beside that great Maya event — the observance of the 280,800th 



year of their era. The date was 4 Ahau-13 Yax, the beginning of the 15th katuu 



of the 9th cycle of the 54th great cycle. Nearly all the other dates in the inscriptions 



of Copan and Quirigua either lead up to or recede from it. It was the be<nnnino- 



of the last quarter of their grand era — the completion of which, it is perhaps needless 



to say, they did not as a nation live to see; nor shall we, nor the other peoples exultin^ 



to-day in pride of nationality, nor any nation to come, until our civilization shall be 



as much a story that is told as theirs is now, and our cities and temples and palaces 



are ruins as complete and mysterious as those of Quirigua and Copan. The grand 



era during which they flourished must still have more than 90,000 years to run. Back 



of ten thousand years all is oblivion. 



But if this remnant of their grand era bids fair to stretch out to the crack of doom, 

 what is to be said of the 280,800 years that had elapsed when the record was made? 

 It is incredible that they could have been dating from any historical epoch, even 

 allowing tradition its most exaggerated play. There is no warrant for supposing that 

 through inspiration or otherwise a day became to their sight as a thousand years. No 

 necessity of their chronological scheme required that it should antedate the time of 

 its adoption. How account, then, for such an immense period 1 ? I confess myself 

 baffled by my own question. The most reasonable answer that suggests itself is that 

 they had a juster appreciation of the antiquity of the earth than most nations have had 

 and that they began their chronology with the supposed date of its creation. The 

 statement of the Aztec historian Ixtlilxochitl that in the year 5097 from the creation 

 of the world an assembly of learned men met at the city of Huehuetlapallan and 

 determined the reckoning of the years, clays, and months, leap-years, and intercalary 

 days, in the order in which they wire found at the time of the conquest; and the 

 information derived from native sources by Veytia that in the year of the world 3901 



