21 
"To find a condition in the Old World comparable to the 
Maya cultural scratch, it is necessary to go far back in human 
history to early Neolithic times when man's knowledge and uten- 
sils were similarly restricted. On this primitive horizon only 
may the Maya civilization be fairly compared with other civili- 
zations of antiquity both in the Old World and in the New. 
"When the material achievements of the ancient Maya in 
architecture, sculpture, ceramics, the lapidary art, feather-work, 
cotton-weaving and dyeing are added to their abstract intellec- 
tual achievements--invention of positional mathematics with its 
concomitant development of zero, construction of an elaborate 
chronology with a fixed starting point, use of a time-count as 
accurate as our own Gregorian Calendar, knowledge of astronomy 
superior to that of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians --and 
the whole judged in the light of their known cultural limitations, 
which were on a par with those of the early Neolithic Age in the 
Old World, we may acclaim them, without fear of successful contra- 
diction, the most brilliant aboriginal people on this planet." 
✓c 
This quotation is taken from Morley's Guide Book to the 
Ruins of Quirigua," Carnegie Institution of Washington Supple- 
mentary Publication No. 16, 1935 (pp. i-vii, 1-205). He who 
wishes to "pursue" the Mayas further should read Dr. Morley's 
"The Ancient Maya," Stanford University Press, 1946 (pp. i-xxxii. 
1-520), which has gone through several editions, the latest of 
which is dated 1956; also John Eric S. Thompson's "The Rise and 
Fall of Maya Civilization," University of Oklahoma Press, 1954 
