In addition to incense, the blood of fish, birds, and animals was smeared over the images of the gods, as an offering, together with human blood obtained by cutting the ears, tongue, genitals, and other parts of the body. The hearts of various animals, together with live and dead animals (some cooked and some raw) and all kinds of foods and drinks in use among the people,[23] were also employed as offerings to the gods. In the hands of figurines upon the incense burners are found, modeled in clay, fruit, flowers, eggs, cakes, birds, small animals, and other objects, all evidently intended for the same purpose.
CHRONOLOGY
Three distinct periods of Mayan civilization seem to be represented in this area. The center of the earliest of these was along the Rio Grande, in southern British Honduras, within 20 miles of the Guatemala frontier, where the Leyden Plate was discovered, upon which is inscribed the earliest but one known Maya date—namely, Cycle 8, Katun 14, Tun 3, Uinal 1, Kin 12. If the massive stone-faced pyramids and terraces of these ruins are contemporaneous with the Leyden Plate, as seems possible, they must be reckoned among the earliest monuments of the first, or southern Maya, civilization. The Benque Viejo temple, in the extreme western part of British Honduras, comes next in point of time. This was almost certainly contemporaneous with its near neighbor, Naranjo, where the earliest Initial Series found is 9.10.10.0.0, and the latest 9.19.10.0.0, giving the city an age of at least 9 katuns, or 180 years. It will be seen that the difference between the Leyden tablet date and the earliest recorded date at Naranjo is rather more than 16 katuns, or 320 years.
The latest of all the sites is undoubtedly Santa Rita, which shows strong Mexican influence; this belongs to the second era of Maya civilization, which reached its highest development in Yucatan and the northern cities. Excluding the Tuluum Stela, the date upon which, 9.6.10.0.0, is almost certainly not contemporaneous,[24] the only Initial Series deciphered with certainty in Yucatan up to the present time is that at Chichen Itza, 10.2.9.1.9, nearly 3 katuns, or 60 years, later than the latest at Naranjo; but probably the Santa Rita site is much later in date than this, and if we may judge by the objects found in the mounds in the vicinity, some of which show strong Spanish influence, it was occupied up to and beyond the conquest.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 64 PLATE 7.
