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Updated: June 13, 2025
If the country had never, in the previous ages, felt the influence of a higher culture than that of the Aztecs, it would not have now, and never could have had, ruined cities like Mitla, Copan, and Palenque.
They maintain, however, that the civilization represented by these ruins was brought to this continent in remote pre-historic times by the people known as Phœnicians, and their method of finding the Phœnicians at Palenque, Copan, and every where else, is similar in character and value to that by which they transform the Aztec empire into a rude confederacy of wild Indians.
No inscriptions are found in Peru; there is no longer a “marvelous abundance of decorations;” nothing is seen like the monoliths of Copan or the bas-reliefs of Palenque. The method of building is different; the Peruvian temples were not high truncated pyramids, and the great edifices were not erected on pyramidal foundations.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have reconsidered my refusal to go to the Copan valley after the idol of gold. I'm going with you!" "Good!" cried Professor Bumper. "Fine!" ejaculated Mr. Damon. "Bless my time-table! I thought you'd come around, Tom Swift." "But what about your stabilizer?" asked Ned. "I was just talking to my father about it," the young inventor replied.
Squier, who tells us more of them than any other explorer, says, “I heard of remains and monuments in Honduras and San Salvador equal to those of Copan in extent and interest.” He mentions the ruins of Opico, near San Vincente, in San Salvador, which “cover nearly two square miles, and consist of vast terraces, ruins of edifices, circular and square towers, and subterranean galleries, all built of cut stones: a single carving has been found here on a block of stone.” Remains of “immense works” exist in the district of Chontales, near the northern shore of Lake Nicaragua; and pottery found in Nicaragua “equals the best specimens of Mexico and Peru.” Don Jose Antonio Urritia, curé of Jutiapa, gave the following account of a great ruin on a mountain in San Salvador, near the town of Comapa: it is called Cinaca-Mecallo: “The walls, or remains of the city wall, describe an oval figure, within which roads or streets may be traced, and there are various subterranean passages and many ruined edifices.
Squier, Frederick Waldeck’s work, and a recent French volume by Desiré Charnay, which is accompanied by a folio volume of photographs. Palacios, who described Copan in 1576, may properly be called the first explorer. A brief account of Palenque was prepared by Captain Del Rio in 1787, and published in 1822.
The curious perforated eye-plates of the Xochicalco chief, which he wore apparently to keep arrows and javelins out of his eyes, are part of the equipment of the Aztec warrior in the picture-writings, while Palenque and Copan seemed to afford no instance of them; so that in two peculiarities the remarkable sculpture before us seems to belong rather to Yucatan than to Mexico, and in one to Mexico rather than to Yucatan.
It's a shame to turn him down for a gang of grafters." "Tell him to come and talk to me," said the minister. "He rode over to the ruins of Copan last week," explained Garland, "where the Harvard expedition is. But he's coming back to-morrow on purpose to see you." The consul had started toward the door when he suddenly returned. "And there's some one else coming to see you," he said.
But I have reason to believe that in this section of Copan is a large city, the existence of which has not been made certain of by any one save myself and, perhaps, Professor Beecher. "Certainly no part of it has seen the light of day for many centuries. It shall be our pleasure to uncover it, if possible, and secure the idol of gold." "How long ago do you think the city was buried?" asked Tom.
We may as reasonably suppose Copan, Quirigua, or some other old ruin, to have been Xibalba. Those who attempt to believe this old American civilization was brought across the Atlantic by the Phœnicians in very remote times, assume, against the plain testimony of the monuments, that the Colhuas came to America from some country on the Mediterranean.
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