Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-11-05
Carnegie Institution Told of
Progress of Excavations
Made at UaxaCtun.
SO AID EARLIEST DATE
UNCOVERED IN OLD RUINS
Guatemalan Discoveries Reveal
Center Once Occupied by at
Least 4s, 900 People.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.


once more than a score of great cities
raised their temple roofs over a coun-
tryside covered thickly with dwellings
and gardens IS described by Oliver
RicketSon, jr., of the staff of the Car
negie Institution cf Washington, who is
in charge Of tile excavation of the ruins
OF UaXactun, Guatemala.
Mr. Ricketson Is now in Washington
and reported the progress of the work in
lecture at the institution building last
night. Uaxact'In was near the center
of the old empire Of the Maya Indians
Exploration of tbs land of dense Jun
gle and smotherllg silence, Mr. Ricket-
son says gives a new concept Of the
extent of this great civilization, which
was at its height at about the start
of the Christian era. The jungle is
full OF ruins OF cities. Some have never
been found. Anybody who wants to find
a new city, perhaps a very large one,
needs only to flt out an expedition,
Ricketson says.
Had Large Population.
Uaxactun, the oldest city yet found
on the American continent, had a mini
mum population If about $4,000, he es-
Inmates, and may have contained near
ly 100000. Twelve miles south is the
great ruin Of Tikal the remains of
whose public buildings and temples
alone cover more than eight square
miles. Many prisons must have lived
IN the midst CT these temples, but Rick
etSon says, the Preat mass of the popu-
lation lived in the midst of the farming
land outside the ity. Tikal cannot be
excavated because there is no available
water
No limit has been found to the
thickly scattered house mounds stretch
ing through the jungle between one
city and another, he said. He estimates
that each house was surrounded with
garden plot about 125 yards square
upon which the Maya farmer raised
sufficient crops to support his family
The plots were practically contiguous,
so that the entire countryside between
UaXactun and Tikal must have pre-
sented the appearance OF a rather
thlckly settled suburb. In the cities
lived the priests, the public officials
and, 1t is probable, the tradesmen. The
farmers used to flock into town to
transact business and attend the re-
hgious ceremonies.
The sites of the dwelling houses are
now marked by raised mounds, covered
with stone floors. On such a mound
the Maya erected q dwelling of wood
and thatch. All such dwellings disap-
peared centuries ago. Only the cleverly
constructed temples remain The cities
were built on the artificially flattened
tops of steep hills, plaza sites for the
temples and public buildings being Sc
lected according to the natural contour
OF the land. Probably houses were put
up in the intervening spaces forming
the residences Of the nobility.
Farm Lands in Valleys.
The farming lands were scattered
through the valleys, about so per cent
OF which, Ricketson estimates were
available for crops. The rest of the
country probably was covered by clear
lakes, now swampS, which constituted
the Maya transportation system. Not a
single house mound, he said. has been
found IN swamp, adding weight to the
theory that the downfall of the MAYA
Empire was due to the filling up of the
lakes.
The movement to the relatively in
hospitable Yucatan country to the
north, RicketSon holds, did not take
place at once, but may have covered
more than century, being speeded I'D
at the end by pressure from the ma
larial swampS. Much the same sort of
process went on, he believes, as that
which has shifted the center of popu-
lation of the United States.
At Uaxactun, Ricketson said in his
lecture. the Carnegie excavators had
gone down Is feet to hard limestone
rock and thus are able to follow the
history Of the site from the time it
first was settled. Sunk in the rock it
self are empty. bottle shaped chambers
the use for which cannot be coriec-
tured. Immediately on top of the rock
is layer of black dirt, which evidently
preceded the temples and contains
many artifscts. which are typically
Maya, but of Il primitive type These
include shell ornaments, bone needles.
pottery and typical clay figures which
are supposed 10 have some religious
significance This confirms. he said.
Maya legend that the ancestors came
into an uninhabited country and es.
tablished their civilization.
IS AID. Oldest Date Found.
On top of the black dirt are six
plaza floors, the three bottom floors
belonging to a temple long since torn
down. AS soon as one floor began to
wear away the builders would cover
it with another floor. The three top
floors belong to another building. the
ruins of which are still to be found.
Apparently the old temple was RACED
and the new one erected on the same
site.
The earliest date which can be read
on the ruin is So AID This makes
Uaxactun by far the Oldest city in the
New World but. Ricketson holds, it is
almost certain that the site had been
occupied for at least 500 years before
this date was carved. The people must
have required that much time to have
developed from a primitive condition TO
the posseSsors of a civilization that en-
abled them TO build the great temples
and TO have worked out the elaborate
astronomical system they possessed
when the date was carved.
While Ricketson described life in
the Jungle as much safer than in one
of our American cities" he spoke OF
the peculiar feeling Of suffocation
which comes from the Subdued green
light and the silence" Because of the
extreme difdculty Of travel. most of the
old empire remains a ruin. untouched
by the spade of the archeologist
Skeletal remains, he said, show the
old Mayas TO have been broad-headed
people whose foreheads and the backs
of whose heads were artificially fat
tened and who filed their incisor teeth.