No well considered theory of these ruins can avoid the conclusion that
most of them are very ancient, and that, to find the origin of the
civilization they represent, we must go far back into the "deeps of
antiquity." On all the fields of desolation where they exist, every
thing perishable has disappeared. Wooden lintels are mentioned, but
these can hardly be regarded as constituting an exception when the
character of the wood, and the circumstances that contributed to their
preservation, are considered. Moreover, wooden lintels seem to have been
peculiar to Yucatan, where many of the great edifices were constructed
in the later times, and some of them of perishable materials. Every
where in the older ruins, nothing remains but the artificial mounds and
foundations of earth, the stone, the cement, the stucco hard as marble,
and other imperishable materials used by the builders.
If the edifices had all been made of wood, there would now be nothing to
show us that the older cities had ever existed. Every trace of them
would have been obliterated long before our time, and most of them would
have disappeared entirely long before the country was seen by the
Spaniards. The places where they stood, with no relics save the mounds
and pyramidal platforms, would resemble the works of our Mound-Builders,
and not a few "sound historical critics" would consider it in the
highest degree absurd to suggest that cities with such structures have
ever existed there. Under the circumstances supposed, how wisely
skepticism could talk against a suggestion of this kind at Copan, Mitla,
or Palenque! and how difficult it would be to find a satisfactory answer
to its reasonings! Nevertheless, those mysterious structures have not
wholly disappeared, and we can easily understand that there was a time
when large areas connected with them were covered with buildings of a
less durable character.
I have referred to a writer who maintains, with more vehemence than
candor, that the Aztecs, and all the other people found in the
country, were "savages" not greatly different from the wild Indians
farther north, while he admits the significance and great antiquity of
these ruins. His conception of their antiquity is somewhat extreme, for
he says they must have existed "for thousands of years" when the
Spaniards arrived. If he had maintained that civilized communities were
there "thousands of years" previous to that time, developing the skill
in architecture, decoration, and writing, to which the monuments bear
witness, it might be possible to agree with him. Some of us, however,
would probably stipulate that he should not count too many "thousands,"
nor claim a similar antiquity for the ruins now visible. It is not easy
to suppose that any of these old monuments, with their well-preserved
sculptures and inscriptions, represent the first period of the ancient
history they suggest, nor that they have existed as ruins many
"thousands of years," for the climate of Mexico and Central America does
not preserve such remains like that of Egypt.
Nevertheless, some of them must be very old. The forest established
since the ruin began, the entire disappearance of every thing more
perishable than stone, the utter oblivion which veiled their history in
the time of Montezuma, and probably long previous to his time, all these
facts bear witness to their great antiquity. In many of them, as at
Quirigua and Kabah, the stone structures have become masses of debris;
and even at Copan, Palenque, and Mitla, only a few of them are
sufficently[TN-4] well preserved to show us what they were in the
great days of their history. Meanwhile, keep in mind that the ruined
cities did not begin their present condition until the civilization that
created them had declined; and, also, that if we could determine exactly
the date when they were deserted and left to decay, we should only reach
that point in the past where their history as inhabited cities was
brought to a close.
Take Copan, for instance. This city may have become a ruin during the
time of the Toltecs, which began long before the Christian era, and
ended some five or six centuries probably before the country was invaded
by Cortez. It was built before their time, for the style of writing, and
many features of the architecture and ornamentation, show the
workmanship of their predecessors, judging by the historical intimations
found in the old books and traditions. We may suppose it to have been an
old city at the time of the Toltec invasion, although not one of the
first cities built by that more ancient and more cultivated people by
whom this old American civilization was originated. The present
condition of the monuments at Quirigua is still more suggestive of great
age.
"THE OLDEST OF CIVILIZATIONS."
Some investigators, who have given much study to the antiquities,
traditions, old books, and probable geological history of Mexico and
Central America, believe that the first civilization the world ever saw
appeared in this part of Ancient America, or was immediately connected
with it. They hold that the human race first rose to civilized life in
America, which is, geologically, the oldest of the continents; and that,
ages ago, the portion of this continent on which the first civilizers
appeared was sunk beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Usually the
ingulfing of this portion of the land is supposed to have been effected
by some tremendous convulsion of nature; and there is appeal to
recollections of such a catastrophe, said to have been preserved in the
old books of Central America, and also in those of Egypt, from which
Solon received an account of the lost Atlantis.
According to this hypothesis, the American continent formerly extended
from Mexico, Central America, and New Granada far into the Atlantic
Ocean toward Europe and Africa, covering all the space now occupied by
the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the West India islands, and
going far beyond them toward the east and northeast. This lost portion
of the continent was the Atlantis of which the old annals of Egypt told
so much in the time of Solon, as we learn from Plato; and it was the
original seat of the first human civilization, which, after the great
cataclysm, was renewed and perpetuated in the region where we now trace
the mysterious remains of ancient cities. Those desiring to know what
can be said in support of this view of Ancient America must read the
later volumes of Brasseur de Bourbourg, especially his "Quatre Lettres
sur le Mexique," and his "Sources de l'Histoire Primitive du Mexique,"
etc. He is not a perspicuous writer; he uses but little system in
treating the subject, and he introduces many fanciful speculations which
do more to embarrass than to help the discussion; but those who read
the books patiently can find and bring together all that relates to the
point in question, and consider it in their own way. They can also find
it set forth and defended in a small volume by George Catlin, entitled
"The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America," published in London, not
long since, by Truebner and Company.
I shall give more attention to this theory in the next chapter. I refer
to it here on account of the very great antiquity it claims for the
ancient American civilization. It represents that the advanced human
development whose crumbling monuments are studied at Copan, Mitla, and
Palenque antedates every thing else in the human period of our globe,
excepting, perhaps, an earlier time of barbarism and pastoral
simplicity; that its history goes back through all the misty ages of
pre-historic time to an unknown date previous to the beginning of such
civilization in any part of the Old World. It is hardly possible to make
it more ancient.