DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE. ¥j 
The principal group of ruins, or the Main Structure as it has been called 
by Gordon,! lies near the center of the valley-plain on the north bank of the 
stream. (See the frontispiece and plate 33.) Formerly the river flowed along 
the base of the hills at the southern side of the valley; but some time after the 
city was built, and probably after it was abandoned, the river changed its 
course and, cutting a new channel nearer the northern foothills, began to 
flow along the eastern edge of the Main Structure. (See plates 3 and 6.) 
As a result of this change, a great part of the substructure has been under- 
mined and washed away, and there is now exposed a vertical surface, 33 
meters in height? and about 100 meters in length, which is probably the 
largest archeological cross-section in the world. (See plate 5.) 
Herein, as from an open book, may be read the history of the city’s 
growth. Successive paved plaza-levels, drains, and even parts of older 
buildings buried in the solid mass of the substructure of this vast, irregularly 
shaped acropolis are clearly exposed. This growth of the Acropolis by 
accretion bespeaks a considerable antiquity for the Main Structure, which, 
however, as will appear later, is probably of more recent origin than the out- 
lying parts of the city, certainly in its present form. 
The Main Structure is composed of five large plazas surrounded by 
pyramids, platforms, temples, and possibly palaces,’ the whole covering 
an area of about 25 hectares. ‘The first map of the city was that made by 
Stephens in 1839.4. It purports to be nothing more than a sketch-map and 
is full of the inevitable inaccuracies common to such, the conditions under 
which it was made precluding the possibility of exact work. One curious 
error in this map should be noted, namely, the positions of the cardinal 
points, which have been reversed 180°, Stephens’s north being south and 
his east, west. In spite of this confusion, however, his map gives a fairly 
adequate idea of the Main Structure. It was, moreover, the first map of 
the city to be published, and as such possesses a bibliographic as well as a 
sentimental interest for the student of this subject. 
The map of the Main Structure by the German engineer Meye in 
1877 is scarcely more accurate than the preceding, although made nearly 
4o years later.© The drawing is more simplified, and there is also figured 
a cross-section of the Acropolis which gives a better idea of this part of the 
Main Structure than can be gathered from Stephens. The measurements 
are also probably more accurate. On the other hand, Meye failed to locate 
four of the stelz® in the Great Plaza given by Stephens, I, B, C, and 4, 
and, judged as a whole, his map may be said to have contributed but little to 
the knowledge of the site. 

1Gordon, 1896, p. 9. 
2Maudslay, 1889-1902, vol. 1 of text, p. 26. 
8There seems no reason for doubting that some of the stone buildings were the residences of the rulers, 
nobles, and higher priests; in fact, Landa so implies, in speaking of the northern Maya cities (Landa, 1881, p. 78). 
4Stephens, 1841, vol. 1, map facing p. 133. This takes no account of Galindo’s map made 5 years earlier 
(1834), which has disappeared. See Appendix XI, p. 595. 
’Schmidt, 1883. See also an English translation of the same by A. D. Savage in the same year. 
6For the meaning of the word stelz (singular, stela), as used in this work, see pp. 50, 51. 
