Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1898-02-12
OLD AMERICAN CITY.
EVIDENCE THAT coPAN LAY IN THE
CRADLE or MAYA CIVILIZATION.

The Mysterious City Of Honduras Rec
mains of Great Temples and Palaces.
Interesting Art Relics.
The Central American explorer George
Byron Gordon contributes an article en-
titled THE Mysterious City Of Honduras
to the January Century This gives an
account of the recent remarkable discoy-
cries made at Copan. Mr.. Gordon says: :
Hidden away among tho mountains Of
Honduras, In a beautiful valley which,
even in that little Travelled country, where
remoteness Is a characteristic attribute of
places, Is unusually secluded, Copan is
one of the greatest mysteries of the ages.
After the publication Tin 1840) of Stephens
account of his visit to the ruins, which
made them known for tho first time to
the world, the interest awakened by his
graphic description and the drawings that
accompanied 1t from the skillful pencil of
Catherwood relapsed, and until within
the last decade writers on the subject of
American archaeology wero dependent en-
tirely for information concerning Copan
upon the writings of Stephens, which were
regarded by many with skepticism and
mistrust. Not only do the recent explora-
tons confirm the account given by Ste
phens as regards the magnitude and ilnpor-
tance Of the ruins, but the collection of
relics now in the Peabody museum is suffi-
cient to convince the most skeptical that
here are the remains of city, unknown
to history, as remarkable and as worthy
of our careful consideration as any of the
ancient centers of civilization in the old
world
Whatever the origin of its people, this
old city is distinctly American, the growth
of American soil and environment The
gloomy forest, the abode Of monkeys and
jaguars, which clothed the valley at the
time of Stephens visit, was in great part
destroyed about 80 years ago by colony
from Guatemala, which came to plant in
the fertile soil of the valley the tobacco for
which, much more than for the ruins,
that valley is famous throughout Central
America today. The trees that grew upon
the higher structures were left, forming
picturesque grove, remnant of which
still remains-a few cedars and ceibas Of
gigantic proportions clustered about the
ruins of the temples, shrouding them in
q somber shade and sending their huge
roots into the crevices and unexplored
chambers and vaults and galleries of the
vast edifices.
The area comprised within the limits OF
the old city consists of level plain seven
or eight miles long and two miles wide at
the greatest. This plain Is covered with
the remains of stone houses, doubtless the
habitations of tho wealthy. The Streets
squares and courtyards were paved with
stone or with white cement made from
lime and powdered rock, and tho drainage
was accomplished by means of covered
canals and underground sewers built of
stone and cement. On the slopes of the
mountains, too, are found numerous ruins,
and even on the highest peaks fallen col
umns and ruined structures may be seen.
On the right bank of the Copan river,
in the midst of the city, stands the princi
pal group of structures-the temples, pal
aces and buildings of a public character.
These form part of what has been called,
for want of better name, the main struc-
ture-a vast, irregular pile rising from the
plain in steps and terraces of masonry and
terminating in several great pyramidal
elevations, each topped by the remains of
temple which, before our excavations
were begun, looked like q huge pile Of
fragments bound together by the roots of
trees, while the slopes of the pyramids and
the terraces and pavements below are
strewn with the ruins of these superb edi-
fees.
This huge structure, unlike the great
pyramids of Egypt and other ancient
works of similar character, is not the
embodiment of definite idea, built in ac-
cordance with a preconoeiyed plan and for
a specific purpose, but is rather the COM
pick result of a long process of develop
ment, corresponding to the growth of
culture, and keeping pace with the ex-
panding tastes of the people or the de-
mands of their national life. Its sides
fare the four cardinal points; its greatest
length from north to south is about 800
feet, and from east to west it measured
originally nearly as much, but a part of
the eastern side has been carried away by
the swift current of the river which flows
directly against it, The interior of the
structure is thus exposed in the form of a
cliff 100 high, presenting a complicated
system of buried walls and floors down to
the waters edge-doubtless the remains of
older buildings, occupied for a time, and
abandoned to serve as foundations for
more elaborate structures. Excavations
have also brought to light, beneath the
foundations of buildings now occupying
the surface, not only the filled chambers
and broken walls of older structures, but
sculptured monuments as WE'LL The theory
of development, though it cannot be set
aside, seems Inadequate to explain this
curious circumstance, and yet there is just
enough difference between these art relics
and those of later date to indicate change
in style and treatment. Whether or not
this change continues in regular sequence
lower down has not yet been determined.
If, as I am inclined to believe, we shall
find, away down in the lower levels, the
rude beginnings from which the culture
of the later period developed, we shall
have pretty conclusive evidence not only
that Copan is the Oldest of the Maya cities,
but that the Copan valley itself, with the
immediate vicinity, was the cradle of the
Maya civilization.