|
Ourse of changing historical succession preserved in the Chronicles. The later the date, the lower in every case the culture; this is impossible not to recognize, nor have we traces of any different course of events. Of course we see the rise of the Aztec nation, a small cycle, but like the Gothic upon the Roman, it comes at the end of the general American break-up--an incursion of barbarians settling on and preserving for us fragments of the culture that preceded them, just as has happened over and over again all over the world. And the same with the Incas in Peru. And yet even the Mexican culture demands our high respect, comparing favorably with European of the same period. Indeed it was actually far ahead of the latter in matters of education and many points of polity. But in spite of its seeming greatness, its heart and energy were gone, just as with Peru, and both yielded to what on the face seems a miracle, but was only the _expression_ of that force which was preparing the American continent for a new race and civilization, still now only in its beginnings. The Mayan empire had already broken up. And even as we write, the archaeological history of the other hemisphere is being repeated here; on the heels of Manabi comes the Chimu Valley, and soon it will be with America as with Egypt--one will not be able to print an up-to-date work on its early history, for new discoveries will carry it back further, and to greater scope, before the previous ones can be edited and gotten to press. Compare the few pages of earliest Egypt in Sharpe's history, with Flinders Petrie's work of a decade or so ago, and that with the situation today. It is a simple fact that decipherment and publication all over the world can no longer keep pace with discovery; and the time has come for archaeology to begin to survey these remnants, engineering works that would tax any modern nation with all our appliances, vast ruined cities, one above the other, innumerable languages and writings, the traces of peoples whose very names are lost to history--as a whole, and to ask itself how long it must have taken for all these works to be accomplished, let alone for the bi  r
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________ Playerstage-commit mailing list Playerstage-commit@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/playerstage-commit
