So much for the Maya civilization in the 15th century, and its then centers and capitals. But of Copan, Palenque, Tikal, and Quiriguá, we have not the slightest trace as living cities. Cortes visited Tayasal on his way to Honduras; Alvarado overran and conquered the Quiché kingdoms; but no one even mentioned the existence of any of these older places. Not a tradition about any of them has ever been discovered among the living natives at any time; for all we can see they were then buried, in ruins, in the forests, and forgotten.
In 1576 Diego García de Palacio, Judge of the Royal Audiencia, made a report to King Philip II of his travels, by royal order, in what is now eastern Guatemala and western Honduras. He reached Copan, and describes "ruins and vestiges of a great civilization and of superb edifices, of such skill and splendor that it appears that they could never have been built by the natives of that province." He sought, but could find no tradition of their history, save that a great lord had come there in time past, built the monuments and gone away, leaving them deserted. This, in the face of what we see on the site, means exactly nothing. Palacio's original manuscript, which is still in existence, was forgotten, only to be later discovered, and printed first in 1860. For 259 years Copan was again forgotten, until visited in 1835 by John L. Stephens. Palenque for its part remained entirely unknown until about the middle of the 18th century. For what we know of real value concerning these ruins we are indebted to the works of Stephens, to the archaeological survey and excavations carried on by Mr. A. P. Maudslay, by the Peabody Museum of Cambridge, and to a few less extended visits by other explorers. In 1891, by the enlightened zeal of President Bográn of Honduras, the Peabody Museum acquired the official care of the Copan ruins for a period of years.
As seen upon the plan, Copan consists of a group of pyramids, on the summit of each of which probably once stood a small temple; of terraces and walls; and finally of sculptured pillars or stelae, each of which has or had before it a low, so-called altar. Nearly all of these stelae bear on one face a human figure surrounded by most elaborate symbolism of dress, ornament, and other figures. The faces are dignified and for the most part not grotesque. Above the head is usually a triple overshadowing. The main symbolism is worked out in bird and serpent motifs, and into the dress at different parts of the body, notably the chest, are worked medallions of faces, as if to symbolize different human centers of consciousness in the body. The sides and back of all are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, whose general characteristic it is to begin with a date, which is followed by the indication of intervals which reach to other dates throughout the whole inscription. This statement holds good for practically all Mayan monumental inscriptions, on stelae or otherwise. And these dates, or most of them, are all we can yet read of these writings. We can, that is, read them in their own terms, but without being definitely able to translate them into our chronology.
The first and greatest work done by the Peabody Museum was in the excavation and partial restoration of the Hieroglyphic Stairway. This stairway is on the west side of mound 26, almost in the center of the plan. It is 26 feet wide, with a three foot carved balustrade on each side. The risers of the steps are carved with a hieroglyphic inscription; at the base is an altar, and the ascent is, or was, broken by seated figures. But fifteen steps are left in place, although an approximate restoration was made by Dr. Gordon of the position of what were probably the upper rows. Originally they must have numbered about ninety, to the top of a pyramid as many feet high; but a landslip at some time, probably since Palacio's time, carried the upper rows down and on over the lower ones, which remained buried until Maudslay's first visit. Palacio mentioned a great flight of steps descending to the river, which the river may have destroyed.
In front of the Stairway stands Stelae M, of which Dr. Gordon closes by saying: "It would seem to have stood in front of the older edifice, that served at last as a foundation for the Hieroglyphic Stairway with its temple, for centuries before the latter was built." And what now is the chronological evidence on these monuments?
Without going into what would be long details to set forth even what is known of the very elaborate Maya methods of time reckoning, it is enough to say that these sculptured dates regularly specify a certain day (indicated by the combination of twenty names with thirteen numbers), and hence recurring only once in 260 days, falling on a certain day of a certain month, in a certain year expressed by four numbers in vigesimal (instead of decimal) progression, so that the successive figures stand for 1, 20, 400, and 8000 years, instead of as with us, 1, 10, 100, 1000. It is a moot point whether the dates include the next stage, of 160,000 years, in the reckoning, or not. And it may be stated by the way, that though the Mayas knew and used the ordinary solar year, their long chronological count was kept in terms of 360 days, the same as we find in co-ordinate use in ancient India, and perhaps significantly identical with the perfect circle of 360 degrees. Whatever the fact, however, as to these higher periods, it is established that nearly all the Maya inscription dates occur within the ninth 400 of the current 8000-year cycle; that is, they are dated between about 3200 and 3600 years after the initial date of that particular period. It is not possible for us to consider these dates other than as the contemporary dates of the monuments themselves; and the great number of them, all over the Maya territory, slightly varying for different sites, points most clearly to a special "building" period of about that extent.
A very few monumental dates go much back of this period. The initial dates of the Temples of the Sun and of the Foliated Cross at Palenque both fall in the 765th year of the same current 8000-year cycle, and that of the Temple of the Cross about five years before that great cycle began. But as these inscriptions then go on to cover long successions of years, these earlier dates are probably historical, but not contemporary. On the other hand, a very few dates come on into the tenth 400; and the only large stela bearing so late a date is at Chichén Itzá, the last great Maya city, so far as our history goes. An analysis of the groupings of these dates on the various monuments of the different sites, and their mutual comparison, gives a good deal of basis to check future historical researches, and at Copan it gives us one definite confirmation, already referred to, of the evidence which the structures themselves afford of successive separated "building" periods, with continued intervening use. Of four consecutive and deciphered dates on the fifteen lower steps of the Stairway, still in position, at Copan, the second and third are respectively 48 and 74 years, and the last, at the lower right hand of our illustration, is 937 years, 44 days later than the first. We can hardly regard this date as a future or prophetic one; it must be, like similar final dates of long inscriptions at Palenque, the contemporary date of the structure. All the other dates at Copan, those as initial dates on stelae, fall within the "building" era of the ninth 400, which we have mentioned as common to nearly all the inscriptions—except one, Stela C, in the middle of the north part of the Great Plaza, whose date is apparently almost contemporary with this final date of the stairway. And these two dates are 730 years later than any other stela date at Copan. Of Stela C, Dr. Gordon says:
The two monuments [the Stela and the Stairway] have certain technical affinities in the carving, as though they might have been the work of the same master.
In short, while we are still far from the end, the story of the monuments and their dates alike so far is that there was a great building period among the most ancient known Maya cities, in what we know as the ninth period, about date 3400 of the current cycle; that Copan shared in this; that then such building ceased, so far as dated monuments go, at Copan for some 730 years. That then the Stairway was rebuilt over a former pyramid, and Stela C erected; that this latter period was a few hundred years later than one Stela we find at Chichén Itzá; that after that silence fell, oblivion for all the southern sites, and internal strife, warfare, and disintegration for the last great Itzá city; then its abandonment; and then finally, on new sites, local dynastic histories, each silent as to these earlier places, yet embracing several hundred years of history, and carrying on even into Spanish times what were still then powerful and, as things went, civilized kingdoms. But they were not Copan.