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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 1912)
THE OMATTA SUNDAY BEE: NOVEMBER 17, 1012. Old City Discovered in Jungle,! (Copyright, 1012. by Frank a. Carpenter ) 4 AMATKs, Quikte mala.-Have IT I you ever heard of Qulra I JL I Seven hundred years before .oiummis discovered America, when our ancestors of north ern Kurono a H... i -... Hn with their fingers on straw, tt w ,hB mosl cIvlllleJ J mJMWC"? I'Phere. It had it, Tel'' U men wh ""ler. stood fine masonry and artists who did wonderful carving, it was thA capital of a great population, which filled the vallev u.f a.m ""B- valij. which In its rertlllty Is equal to that of the Nile, the Ganges, the Amaion or the Congo. The Valley of (he Motmrun. Today thl valley Is covered wtth Jun Elc Palm trees of lM varieties wave their fanlike leaves over It. and lianas, from the thickness of your finger to that of your leg. bind the great trees together. Mixed wtth the palms are ma- uoi,unies and other hardwoods, so that tho vegetation Is almost Impenetrable. The undergrowth Is dense and It Is a good woodsman who can cut his way for two miles through -the Jungle Inside of twelve hours. Tho soli and climate are such that the clearing of today becomes ft forest within a few years and plant will shoot up to from a doien to twenty feet In tho course of six months. At the same time the decay of the vege tation Is rapid. Cut It down an'd It rots to quickly that within a few months the smaller trees havo disappeared, and, by tho aid of the vast armies of ants, the larger ones last but a few years.' For this rca-ion all of the woodwork of that ancient civilization has long slnco passed away. The stonework remains, and within the last thirty or forty months American archeologlsts have been dig ging It out of tho Jungle and trying to discover the character of the people who lived here 1.000 and more years ago. What they have found and what they are doing 1 shall tell you further on In this letter. Where the Tin tun Lie. But first let me give the location. I doubt whether many of you have ever heard of tho Motagua river and of this Bl eat .Garden of Eden known as the Mo tagua valley. It was well fitted for the home of a great people. If you remem ber your history you will find that the first civilizations have sprung up In val leys. The soil there Is rich and the river mokes It easy to carry tho products from one place to another. Tho fight for food la not hard, and the people have leisure to cultivate the gentler arts. Other peo ples come to buy of their abundance. Commerce follows and in time civiliza tion grows. So the civilization of Egypt sprang up in the valley of the Nile; so that of Babylon and Nineveh In tho delta of the Euphrates, and so that of old India along the banks of the Ganges. It was somewhat the same In Central America. The continent here consists of b backbone of mountains, with a narrow ttrlp of lowlands along the coast. The Motagua river flows out of the moun tains In Guatemala, 'and It has a valley about five miles wide running from this backbone to the sea. The mountains are so situated that they catch the water laden winds of the Caribbean and give It n heavy rainfall. At the same time they shelter It from the wind and make It a tropical paradise. TJie Home of the Mayans. This paradise was the. Garden of. Eden of this nation 1,000 years ago. Its people' were the Mayans. They conquered the jungle and lived here no one knows how long, until In time they were con quered by the wilder tribes, and the jungle again ca ne into Its own. ! The exact dat.J of these events are un- Known. It was probably 1,000 years ago when the Jungle again resumed Its sway, hnd from then until now nature has reigned supreme: It Is only during the last century that anyone has known that a civilization ever existed here. And It is only now, when a railroad has been cut j through to get to the highlands and when the American fruit men have begun to cut down the trees and make their banana plantations, that any Idea of the extent of tha't civilization has come to be known. In building the railroad, the grades cut through a circular Indian mound as high as a four-story house, and for forty-five miles along the hills on one side of the valley were found graves with walls made of smooth round stones, brought from the neeks and rivers. On the other side of tho Motagua mounds of greater height were discovered, and In them pieces of pottery, whistles of clay and the sfone utensils of various kinds. 'mere were il.o pieces of Jade and obsidian. It Is now known that the ruins arc scattered over an area of about 300,00) acres, and that they Include not only these grave mounds, but mighty monu ments and the remains of a great city. The City of Qnlrlwua. Our first knowledge of this city came jtiout seventy years ago, when the Ste phens expedition went through Central America, and a man named Catherwood (nw some of tho ruins. Wc learned more about it In 1883, when Alfred, P. Mauds ley made his way througli this region and phqtographed some of the monu ments. The real work of excavation, however, was begun just about two years ago, when the St. Iuls Society of the Ar theological Institute decided to do some woik In Gautemala, and at the Instance j Best Treatment for All Complexion Ills (Kiom Woman's Tribune.) I'll tell you my panacea for all com l.lpxion troubles. If the skin be colorless, sallow, muddy, over-red. If It be rough, 1,'oUhy, or pimply, there's nothing that will k surely overcome the condition as oirllPary mercollzed wax. Tho wax liter p'ly lakes off a bad complexion absorbs Hut dead and near-dead particles of sur face skin, ho gently, gradually, you ex I erlonce no Inconvenience at all. A new complexion Is then In evidence, one so clear, spotless, delicately soft and beauti ful, you look many years younger, One oiinco of this wax, procurable at any drug lore, will rejuvenate even the worst com l lcxlou. It Is smeared on like cold cream 1 eforo retiring and removed mornings w.th warm water. The mercollzed wax habit is a healthier and more economical one than tho cosmetic habit. If the skin be wrinkled or flabby, bathe It dally In a solution made by dissolving an ounce of powdered saxollte In a halt pint of witch hazel. This acts Immediately, affecting oven the deepest wrinkles. Klsle Desmond. Advertisement. If MAKE KNOWN YOUR WANTS through The Bee'i Real Es tate asd Classified Colusa as. of Victor M. Cutter, manager of the1 Gautemala division of the United Fruit company, came to Qulr.'gua and began their work here. The United Fruit com pany has aided them In their work, grant ing them seventy-flvo acres of land, which contained the most important porta of the ruined city, and forming what is to be known as Qulrigua park. It Is In that tract that the excavations. are now going on. 'They are under the charge of Dr. Edgar L. Hewitt and Prof, Sylvanus G. Morley, who have gangs of natives at work. They are now uncover ing what was once the great temple city of the Mayan, and' they have already cleared away the junglo over a great part of the tract. They have cut down ma hogany and other trees, and are now digging up monuments 'so gigantic that they remind one of the mighty statues of the upper Nile. Thirteen Mighty Monuments. Before I describe the city Itself, let me tell you something about these mighty monuments. There are thirteen of them which have been already uncovered, al- uiougn some are sun Bunnell creep in ine earth. These are gigantic monoliths, of sandstone, solid blocks from twenty to thirty feet high, some of which must weigh many tons. These great figures stand right In the jungle. One, for In stance, Is supposed to be thirty-six feet' In length. It rises twenty feot above the ground, and It Is said to extend at least twelve feet below It. It leans like the Tower of Pisa, but It was probably straight when It was erected. Another monument Is twenty-four feet In height and four feet In diameter, and a third, mammoth stone, which I photo graphed, was thirty-three feet In circum ference. All of these monument") are covered with carvings, and the arche ologlsts have translated some of the writings upon them. They believe them to have been made along about C00 years after Christ, and In that case they would be over 1,200 years old. It rciiunt riict Iiik n L'lvlllzntloii. Tt Is difficult to reconstruct a civiliza tion when one has nothing but stones to tell the story. So far the archeologlsts have not gotten much beyond tho trans lation of the dates, and they are not absolutely sure of them. They bellove the monuments to be largely religious, and that tho city of Qulrigua was a temple city and the place of worship of many people. I can only give you the note which I have made of the monuments as they stood before me. What they mean, you must figure out for yourself. Here, for Instance, Is a great stone column which rises eight feet out of the earth and ex tends many feet below the surface. It is about ten teet wide and the whole Is covered with carving. On one side Is u woman's figure. 1 take my tape measure and find that the face Is about a foot thick. It Is evidently that of a queen, for the head has a crown, and In the lady's ears are plugs, which remind me of tho women of Burma, who wear greut plugs In their ears. f The lady who sat as a model for this engraving may have been a Mayan princess, and she was probably vain. Many ear plugs made of jade have been found among the rulnr. This monument Is as big as the caboose of a freight train. It Is of sandstone, and notwith standing Its 1.3C0 years of life, is still beautiful. But let us go on through the Jungle. We walk a few rods along the path that has been cut and come to a stono which has a woman's face on one side and that of a monkey on thp other. This In like some of the East Indian monuments, It makes' one wonder whether- the ancestors of these people did not come from Asia. Still farther on Is the leading monu ment of which 1 have spoken. It Is as high as a two-story house, nnd has a gigantic head rawed out near tho top. The face Is of wonderful work manship, and It seems as though the thing might talk. The eyes are fat and bulgy, the noso Is that of a Jew. thn forehead Is low, and the beard, which hides the chin, is like that which one sees on the statues of the Egyptian kings. The great ears on each side of tho face are half hidden by plugp of Jade, and thp features remind us of thpse of the Assyrians, or Egyptians. The Original Ilnll Hnoir, Stranger than all these, however. Is the monument which has been recently exhumed. It is a great stone upon which, In alto-relievo. Is carved a great round face which bears the happy ex pression so often seen In the cartoons of Theodore Itoosevelt. The' open mouth shows great teeth and a joyful grin Is seen at the corners. The ar cheologlsts here say that this Is the Simon-pure origin of the Roosevelt smile. It proves the antiquity of the genealogical tree of our former presi dent, and It may be that when the cartoons of the man who heads the luill moose party are exhumed from tho debris of a thousand years hence the archeologlsts of tho future may con nect the two In their long narrative of past civil Izatloni. I.Ike (he Chlnear. Other monuments moke me think of the Tartars. . They have Tartar features, and they look not unlike tho giants In stone which guard the Ming tombs at Nanking and near the- Nanko pass through the great wall of China. In connection with this Is tho evident deification of the turtle, which has always been the Chinese emblem of longevity, as Is shown by g. gantlc stone turtles In many parts of north China. One of the biggest monu ments I have seen here outside the great shafts Is a turtle which weighs about twenty tons and Is at least eight feet In height. It Is entirely "covered with hiero glyphics and Is one great mass of carv Inf. linn- the Monument Were llnllt. These monuments which surround the ancient city of Qulrigua are said to be the largest of their kind upon the Ameri can continent, and the wonder Is how the people of those ancient times could have lifted such enormous weights. AVe have no record that the' had beasts of burden, and machinery was as yet unlnvented. They probably used levers, pulleys and cables and rolled the stones into place upon Inclined planes. There are evidences that the great stones were brought down upon rafts at tho time of the floods, and the remains of an ancient canal is shown. Tlie stone Itself Is such that It hardens with age. being comparatively soft when It comes from the quarry, and the carv ing may "have been done with stone axes and stone chisels, aided by knives of ob sidian. In (lulrlcun City. So nvuch for the monuments about Qulr igua. Now let us look at the main part of the city. I found the men working there when I visited It yesterday. They were laboring in the heart of the Jungle. Palms and mahogany trees, some of the latter lin feet high, shaded them, and the trunks of great trees lay among the debris of the temple mounds which they were cut ting out. They have alreudy cleaied.u space of six or eight acres which Is filled with great mounds under Which lie some mighty temples of the past. The mounds are twenty or thirty feet high, and you cun see the stones of temples showing out. On the tops of some of them giew trees many feet thick and In mound No, 1 I saw negroes cutting out tho stumps of mahogany trees. They were taking away the earth In one corner and there under the supervision of Mr. Morley the ancient walls were being relald. The tem ple on which he was working was about thirty feet wide ami 100 feet long. The stones taken out were covered with carv ings and upon them were the faces of men and women. There were also glyphs or characters cut In the stone. The stones I first saw were a part of n frieze and Mr. Morley showtd me that the wall of the temple was nine feet thick, and that the whole of the outside Is covered with caning. One door has been oxcavattd and the slabs over this are seven feet long. I saw one piece or sandHtiiiie which luid a hole cut through It, and It seemed to mo as though it might have been the top of a letter bov. The (iriuiil llnxat From this temple I went to others. ; climbing up the steps until I could look j down on the great court in which the mounds of temples lay. The wholo medu me think of the stadium at Athens; a-id I can see that when the earth Is nl clpared away the site will bo very Im- 1 poxlng. Much of the 'buildings has al-' ready been uncovered, and you can walk about through the ancient structures and wonder what kind, of people put them1 into shaie. There Is no doubt but that the stone a"' came from some distance. The soil of th court Is a sandy loam, and there are iv, rocks of any kind within three miles of It excepting those in the temples. Th chlef quarries are three miles away, and It is believed that the heaviest monu-' ments were brought here by turning the course of the Qulrigua river so that It i an past tho temples. . The city seems to have been laid with a grand plazai or court, with a smaller court adjoining for the temples or main buildings. The main buildings surround a court. They had terraced walls from thirty to sixty feet high, and In some of them are rooms with walls of square stones and doorways arched with flat stones. To the north of the plaza. Is a pyramid, which Is ISO feet square at the bate and forty feet high. Near this pyramid Is a round, carved stone so big that It would take forty horses to haul If It was put upon a wagon. This stone Is covered with carvings, and among them Is that of a woman, elaborately dressed, Nearby lies another great stonet which looks like the head of a tiger, and all Showing tho happy crowds at the Ohritmas opening of Fred Brodegaard Jewelry Co., lost Monday. Last Sunday We Explained The astounding fuels of how wc are able during the next few weeks to offer the best line of manufactured Dia mond Jewelry in the "World, made hy the, retiring firm of Kat. & Loudan, 87 Nassau-Street, Now York City. 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Opening sale price tpQ.UU Souvenir Spoon Sale Any Souvenir Spoon in the store, $1.50 to 7Q . $2.25 values, at JQ See Our $100,000 Window On Exhibit Until November Thirtieth, Atthesignof THE CROWN UP WE GQLDIH STAIRS J -fit.. about are blocks of carved stone of one kind or other. All about the excavated city ) an Im mense banana plantation. The seventy flvo acres of park contain some Jungle, but the'frult company haa cut down tlui dense woods surrounding this, and bana nas are now growing among the logs and In the ashes of the burned vegetation. Some of tlie trees on thn gTound ar twenty feet In clrcumfeience, and these giants of the Jungle show the work that hm to be done In the clearing. A part of the park will probably be left as It is, for It Is as fine a specimen of tropical Jungle as can be found on the faco of the globe. I am told that tho woods contain deer, monkeys, hloths and ant-caters, and 1 nuw biids of bright plumage flying about tlie trees. As It Is now the tulns can be cudly reached by rallioad, the cty of Qulrigua being only a mlli and a half from the track and about sixty miles Inland from I'ucrto liarrlos on the Caribbean sea. Word liiml thr Miixii. And now in closing let me say a word about tho people who probably buirt this city and made these wonderful carvings. They arc practically unknown, although the work of archeologlsts may In time result In further knowledge. There are evidences on the monuments of skulls and crossbones, showing that they had , the same symbol of life and death that n have and some of tho carvings ae evidences of the dates I have given, Dr. Ilewott believes that their civilization was largely religious, and that the gov ernment wan a theocratic republic. He thinks that they lived In houses some what similar to tho bamboo huts, of tlie tropics, and that these great temples, monuments and pyramids were put up only as a means of worshiping their gods. Somo of the other archeologlsts think that the faces on tho monuments were those of the queens, kings dr priest esses of that day. These people are believed to hare be longed to the Mayans, a race stock which Included many nations and which lived in southern Mexico, and In a great part of Guatemala and Salvador, According tq the Mayan traditions they came from the north, and It Is said that It was not long after the time of Chiin that they mads their way -south into Mexico, They are supposed to have been In Yucatan about COO A. D.. and here In Guatemala a little laterr The people of Yucatan are said to be among their descendants, and the same may be true of some bf the tribes of Guatemala. THANK G. CAHPENTEP;,