The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan

The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan

In publishing the present volume, it is our privilege to produce the first book ever written by Englishmen on Yucatanthat Egypt of the New World, where, it is now generally admitted, Central American Civilisation reached its apogeeand to be, for the present at least, the only Englishmen who can claim to have explored the uncivilised north-eastern portions of the Peninsula and the islands of her eastern coast. Mr. A. P. Maudslay, who in 1889 made a lengthy stay at and a detailed survey of Chichen, has done yeoman service to Central American archology by his years of patient work (alas! too little appreciated) in Guatemala, in the Usumacinta district and Southern Mexico. Work, and wonderful work, has been done in civilised Yucatan by bands of earnest labourers from the States, from Germany, and from France. Among these the most notable is the late J. L. Stephens, the American traveller, who visited Yucatan in 1842, and who is justly regarded as the Father of Mayan archology. In his footsteps has followed, during recent years, Mr. Edward H. Thompson, one of the most painstaking and accomplished of American archologists. France has been represented by M. Desir Charnay, and latterly by Count Perigny. Of the German field-workers the most assiduous have been Professor Seler, T. Maler, and K. Sapper; while all who wish to see the Mayan problem solved must pay a meed of thanks to the eminent Professor Forstemann for his attempts to decipher the inscriptions, even if they feel, as do we, that he has allowed his enthusiasm to lead him too far astray on a will-o'-the-wisp path of inquiry and theory. The problem reviewed in this volume is a profoundly interesting one. The ethnology of the Americas presents a problem as yet unsolved. The average ethnologist has been content to label the vast affiliated hordes and tribes [Pg viii] of the two Americas "Mongolian." But the American ethnological puzzle is deepened by the existence of what is known as the Mayan civilisation and its many ramifications throughout Central America. Whence came these building races? What cradle-land is one to assign to architects whose achievements often rival in grandeur the monuments of Egypt? How is one to believe that they were ordinary members, or members at all, of that great affiliated race of American Indians whose ideas of building were represented in the north by the snow-house of the Eskimo and the wigwam of the Sioux, and in the south by the leaf-shelters of the cannibal inhabitants of the forests of Brazil? ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 42061
Author: Arnold, Channing
Release Date: Feb 10, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Frost, Frederick J. Tabor