In February, 1898, while engaged upon the translation and commentary of
the anonymous Hispano Mexican MS. of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Library, of Florence, my interest was suddenly and unexpectedly diverted
from my self-imposed task by the circumstances described in the opening
pages of the present publication.
Laying my work aside, as I then supposed, for a few days only, I seized
the new thread of investigation with a keen and enthusiastic interest,
little knowing that it, in turn, was not only to hold me fast for nearly
three years, but was to lead me out of my original field of research, into
distant, and to me, hitherto untrodden realms, in close pursuit of facts
relating to the oldest forms of religion, social organization, and
symbolism.
The first portion of the present publication was planned as a short
monograph of forty-one pages, treating of the origin of the native
swastika or cross symbols, and was written in July, 1898, its outcome
being the unforeseen conclusion that the cosmical conceptions of the
ancient Mexicans were identical with those of the Zuñis. I next traced the
same fundamental set of ideas in Yucatan, Central America and Peru and
formed the wish to add this investigation to the preceding. The result has
been the portion of the work extending from page 41, paragraph 2, to page
284, which was printed in 1899.
Having once launched into a course of comparative research, the deep
interest I have always taken in the question of Asiatic contact led me to
carry my investigation of the same subject into China. It then seemed
impossible not to extend researches from Eastern to Western Asia, and from
Asia Minor to Egypt, Greece, Rome and Western Europe. It is in this
unpremeditated way that the scope of the present investigation enlarged
itself of its own accord, for the simple reason that the most interesting
and precious facts fell into my way as I advanced and all I had to do was
to pick them up and add them to my collection of evidence.
One serious disadvantage, arising from the circumstance that the present
investigation has been in press for nearly three years, is my inability to
make any alteration, amendment, or addition, in the earlier portions,
which stand as written at different times. It is a matter of regret to me
that I was not acquainted with O’Neil’s “Night of the Gods” and Hewitt’s
“Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times,” at an earlier stage of my
investigation, as through them my publication would have been enriched by
many valuable additions which I could have incorporated in the body of my
work without unduly sacrificing its unity of form.
In the line of Maya investigation notable advances have been made since I
wrote (on page 221), about the “septenary set of signs” described by Mr.
A. P. Maudslay in 1886, and about the inscription on the tablet of the
Temple of the Cross at Palenque (pp. 237-39). Since that time an important
publication on the Tablet of the Cross, to which I should have liked to
refer, has been issued by the much esteemed Nestor of Maya investigations,
Herr Geheimrath Dr. Förstemann. My attention has also been drawn by the
best versed of American students of the Maya Codices, Mr. Charles P.
Bowditch, to the fact that Mr. Maudslay now recognizes the general
recurrence of an eighth sign in combination with the septenary group,
causing this to consist of an initial glyph, followed by seven instead of
six signs. Referring the reader to pp. 221 and 222, I point out that the
employment of an initial glyph, representing the synopsis of a whole,
followed by seven signs, appears even more strongly to corroborate my view
that the inhabitants of Copan were acquainted with the septenary, cosmical
division I have traced.
My fellow archaeologists will understand the disadvantage of issuing an
investigation partly written a few years previously, and will realize
that, had I, at the outset, been in possession of all the facts I have
since learned, the present work would have been very differently planned
and executed. On the other hand, as it partakes somewhat of the nature of
a log-book, the reader is able to follow closely my blundering course, and
will recognize and appreciate some of its perils and difficulties. It
being, unfortunately, impossible to re-write the book. I shall have to be
resigned to incur some criticism and blame for omissions, which could have
been averted. I shall, however, be content if my prolonged study of
ancient Mexican archaeology and the present research open out new lines of
investigation, and conclusively prove that primitive cross-symbols and the
swastika are universally accompanied by vestiges of a certain set of
cosmical conceptions and schemes of organization, which can be traced back
to an original pole-star worship. I can but think that the material I have
collected will also lead to a recognition that the rôle of the Phœnicians,
as intermediaries of ancient civilization, was greater than has been
supposed, and that it is imperative that future research be devoted to a
fresh study and examination of those indications which appear to show that
America must have been intermittently colonized by the intermediation of
Mediterranean seafarers.
To me the most interesting result of the present investigation is the fact
that, having once started on an unpremeditated course of study, I found an
unsuspected wealth of material and finally attained one main, totally
undreamed-of conclusion, concerning the law governing the evolution of
religion and civilization. This leads me to think that, as I groped in
darkness, searching for light, I unwittingly struck the true key-note of
that great universal theme which humanity, with a growing perception of
existing, universal harmony, has ever been striving to seize and
incorporate into their lives. The fact that many of the transcriptions of
the original harmony have been and are discordant, and that they
temporarily obscure, instead of rendering, its sublime grandeur, unity and
noble simplicity, appears as the inevitable result of the mental activity,
ingenuity and creative imagination to which mankind also owes its
intellectual and spiritual progress.
In conclusion I regret my inability to express adequately my grateful
appreciation of the unfailing loyalty of those true friends, in particular
Prof. F. W. Putnam, who, trusting in the earnestness of my purpose and
endeavor, have constantly encouraged and cheered me as they patiently
awaited the long-delayed completion of my work.
Z. N.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.,
DECEMBER 31, 1900.