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The Exploration of the Maya World

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The Exploration of the Maya World Norman Hammond The Exploration of theMaya World a After nearly century and a half of discovery,Maya archaeology continues toprovide ever earlier glimpses of an importantancient civilization The remains of ancient Maya civili that in spite of numerous incursions This and other, briefer but zation first attracted at widespread the Itz? around Lake Pet?n Itz? sub equally intelligent assessments in tention in the as a result of the mitted in 1840s, only 1697, and many of the dicate curiosity but not any system of in explorations John Lloyd Stephens Maya Quintana Roo and Belize atic pursuit of knowledge. The an and Frederick Catherwood in Hon either or nominally not at all. In Yu cestors of the contemporary Maya duras, Guatemala, and southeastern catan, however, Spanish settlement were implicitly accepted as the and two Mexico, their popular books proceeded rapidly, and some of the builders of the now-ruined sites, and of Incidents Travel who of (Stephens 1841, clerics arrived there took care to the high quality of the architecture Yet the ruined cities in the note the of a was 1843). vestiges bygone age. In and the sculpture frequently rain forest tropical which Stephens 1548, when Lorenzo de Bienvenida remarked upon. described so and Cath and other evocatively Franciscans settled at the In the succeeding period, from erwood illustrated with new of out equal felicity capital M?rida, born of 1759 on, Spain was ruled by the an had been known and wondered at the ruins of the Maya city of Tihoo, tiquarians Charles III and Charles IV, since the three he Spanish conquest observed that they found them and the deliberate exploration of a centuries and were attributed selves earlier, among buildings "which it few Maya ruins was undertaken. from the to the ancestors seems to us were beginning built before Christ, Almost all the expeditions concen of the who dwelt in on Maya peoples because the trees top of the trated on Palenque, in the forest the area in the sixteenth were as as century. buildings high the ones lowlands of Chiapas, where between What the work of and around them. was no rec Stephens There 1773 and 1807 four separate attempts Catherwood did accomplish was to ord ofwho built them, [and] in all the were made to find out more about the as a launch Maya archaeology serious discoveries in the Indies none so fine mysterious "stone houses" with their field of research, one inwhich both have been found" (Bernai 1977, p. intricate stucco decorations. The last and have exploration discovery 21). two attempts, by Antonio del Rio and continued unabated for 140 years. In this initial period of interest Guillermo Dupaix, were carried out The in Spanish conquistadors Maya sites, which persisted until under explicit royal instructions, and found a dense or about we can see an in Maya population 1759, admiration their sampling of building mate into in ganized fractious city-states for the vanished builders and an as rials and pottery as well as their both northern Yucatan and the signment of substantial age, but no careful illustration were as respon of Guatemala and to as highlands Chiapas. attempt attribute the ruins to any sible any archaeological projects The vast forest area of Pet?n and known Old World in culture spite of then being carried out in Europe. what is now Belize was less fully their acknowledged quality. This work, and that of such lesser settled and less so easily penetrated, A second and better-known lights as Jean-Fr?d?ric Waldeck, di commentator was an of this period rectly inspired the explorations of other Franciscan, Diego de Landa, Stephens and Catherwood, which Norman Hammond isAssociate Professor of whose overzealous of In from 1840 on ushered in a new of Archaeology at Rutgers University. He received pursuit age ideals, to the studies. his undergraduate degree in archaeology and quisitorial extending Maya destruction of hiero anthropology from Cambridge University, where many Maya This period, which lasted until he also a in classical led to completed graduate diploma glyphic books, his recall to 1924, ismarked by the contributions and a Ph.D. He has been a a archaeology Visiting Spain for trial. The document he of series of major scholars who laid at the at as Professor University of California prepared part of his defense, the the foundations ofMaya and at in the archaeology Berkeley JilinUniversity People's Relation de las cosas de Yucatan, is the as it existed until well after World China, and has been on the Republic of Rutgers best evidence we have of the colonial War II. Their work was concentrated since 1977. A in faculty specialist Maya view of in two Spanish Maya culture. With fields: the study of hiero archaeology, he has conducted in field projects the aid of informants and field notes and the Belize since 1970, and has also worked in glyphic writing exploration on ruins at Tihoo, Izamal, and of fresh sites in the forests ofMexico Ecuador, Afghanistan, and North Africa. His Chich?n Itz?, Landa described the and Guatemala. present research is focused on the emergence of architecture and calendar of Maya civilization; he is the author of Ancient the The first of these scholars was Maya Civilization (1982). Address: Maya, and attempted to explicate Charles Etienne Brasseur de New their in Archaeology Program, Rutgers University, hieroglyphic script terms of Bourbourg, again a priest, who after Brunswick, NJ 08903. the Spanish alphabet. traveling through Central America in 482 American Scientist, Volume 70 the early 1850s and editing two im portant fragments of surviving pre Hispanic Maya literature, the epic of the Popol Vuh and the drama of Rabi nal-Achi, made his most significant discovery in the prosaic surround ings of the Academy of History in Madrid. This was the then unknown Relation de las cosas de Yucatan, and the information on the Maya calen dar and writing that it contained proved vital toworking out a chro nology for this ancient civilization. men Three share the principal credit for this achievement. One was a field archaeologist, Alfred Maud slay, who between 1883 and 1894 made numerous expeditions toMaya sites, bringing back a superb photo graphic record as well as molds of inscriptions and sculptures (Fig. 1). His work, published in the Biologia Centrali-Americana between 1889 and 1902, is still invaluable to ar chaeologists today. The second per son was Ernst F?rstemann, Royal Li brarian of Saxony and custodian of the late pre-Hispanic Maya book known as the Dresden Codex, one of only three surviving codices and the to key understanding Maya obser vations of the moon and Venus as well as the place-notation mathe matics used in Maya astronomical calculations. F?rstemann was able to demonstrate the existence of the Long Count, a cumulative calendar proceeding from a base date in the distant past, and in 1894 used 1. One of of civilization Maudslay's data from the site of Figure many vestiges Maya photographed in the 1880s by Alfred the of the Sun at was the of to read dates on seven of the Maudslay, Temple Palenque object archaeological interest as Copan as when the first of four early 1773, Spanish expeditions explored the site. Now known to stelae there. The third be of a of magnificent part complex dynastic temples erected by Chan-Bahlum in the late seventh T. was the name an man, Joseph Goodman, able to century A.D., temple takes its from elaborately carved tablet in an interior link shrine Chan-Bahlum from his the Pacal the floating chronology to the depicting receiving power father, great (see Figs. 9 and between them stands a shield a sun Christian calendar 10); bearing mask of the god in his nocturnal by correlating as The mansard roof and aspect jaguar. latticed roof comb of the structure represent a dates for events with variant Maya given regional of the Classic Maya style. dates provided by colonial docu ments. His scheme remains accepted in its essentials thus we rec Research carried out today: massive long II apart from the study of the Post that the monuments of term at ognize great projects Chich?n Itz? in Yu classic capital ofMayapan in Yucatan, Copan, Palenque, Tikal, and other catan, at Uaxactun in Pet?n, where which had flourished from about A.D. sites were carved and erected the earliest during known dated Maya stela 1250 to 1450. a Classic Period of A.D. 250-900 had been located, and at numerous The postwar period was domi (Table when civilization other 1), Maya sites, including Copan. Dozens nated by universities, and in partic reached its of new sites were apogee. discovered and ular by the Peabody Museum at After World War I, ar and their Maya mapped, monuments re Harvard and the University Museum entered an "institutional" corded. The immense ma chaeology corpus of of the University of Pennsylvania. from 1924 to terial built period, extending 1970, up by the Carnegie has The former had acquired Gordon R. when the field was dominated a to be of by proved enduring use, and Willey as Bowditch Professor in 1950, few North American establishments even now some of this rich store is and he brought the techniques of led the Institution of still by Carnegie being published for the first settlement archaeology developed in With the stimulus of time. the Washington. During 1940s the Carnegie Peru into the Maya field with an G. and under the was Sylvanus Morley severely criticized for its atheo important project at Barton Ramie in hand of Alfred V.
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