| Show THE GREAT 11 HITE 11 al OF THE maba A through the courtesy of the carnegie institution we are permit ted to give the following to our readers recent discovery in the jungle covered region on northeastern yu catan forty miles out of coba of or a segment of solid stone 13 feet long 24 feet in diameter and weighing about five tons nicely fashioned in to cylindrical form draws attention once again to the fact that the an dent clent occupants of an area long un inhabited numbered among the oth er remarkable skills to which they had attained the building of raised roads ot of paved stone it seems probable thai this great stone cylinder was designed to be used in packing down into solid mass successive courses of materials particularly surfacing material as 4 these were added in the process of I 1 r road oad construction presumably the gangs of laborers on the road bly 1 slaves working under threat of da the lash possibly captives taken in combat pushed such cylinders about as the work proceeded and in so do ing anticipated by many centuries the advent of the steam stearn or gasoline driven metal roller so essential to the road making of today A Ne toik of roads coba accent on the last sylla ble a maya city of consequence during pre columbian days as Is shown by abundant archeological ev idenie but now long abandoned lies iles about sixty five miles east by south of chichen itza the headquarters of the archeological field staff of car negie institution of washington study of coba and the region there has revealed the fact that it Is at the center of a network of 0 rais ed constructed roads which run off north east south and west and con hect various groups of ruins cocat i ed about the chain of small fresh water lakes that is such a distinctive feature of the district one great road which takes to the westward from coba had been tho t to end at the ruins of yasuna about twelve miles southwest of chichen itza but no one had even traced its course from end to end the region is difficult to traverse low bush and jungle the character covering of the section toward the west merging as it does with the tall rain forest toward the ast effectively obscures all surface tea fea tures again the limestone forma 4 tion which underlies the entire area so porous that water is not to be bad had except in a few favored lacall ties the coba district with its chain of lakes being the most notable moreover the region around coba Is without permanent population A few gatherers who engage in tapping the sapodilla trees during the rainy season and who occupy temporary camps and occasional hunters in search of game are the only people to be found in a region which once sustained a numerous population because of these conditions and because of the difficulty of pene brating the jungle tangle where no trail exists this once magnificent highway glimpsed only here and there at breaks in the forest growth had never been followed through exploring expedition organized for rn amny ny years dr sylvanus G morley in charge of the carnegie institution field staff has hoped tor for opportunity to determine the facts about this the greatest of all cause ways running out of coba finally this year 1933 the time seemed propitious and he set about organic las ing and equipping an expedition to bead head the expedition he chose alfonso villa a young schoolmaster of the race who for the past bast three years has been assisting professor robert redfield of chica go 90 university a research associate of carnegie institution in study of the life of chan kom a modern tho isolated village drs morley and redfield commissioned villa to select twelve maya indians to accompany him to equip a pack train with supplies and water carry ing receptacles to enter the road at yasuna and to follow it wherever it led making a traverse survey as he went it was on feb 27 last that villa and his party entered e I 1 the jungle at yasuna prepared to trace the road to plot its curves to measure its length and to study the details of its construction taree weeks later the party emerged from the forest at coba sixty two and a halt half miles distant as shown by a steel tape car tied ried by the party by following the road throughout its entire distance villa demonstrated conclusively the correctness of early conjectures that yasuna and coba were the als of this great causeway the first ameilia in roid roller it was ahil q cutting his way thru the thick bush twenty two miles out of yasuna that villa came upon the stone roller which my ruay be fairly called the first american road roller lying on top of the causeway tow ard one side in all probability just where i it had been left by the build ers centuries before sun and wind and weather and the passing years have treated it badly tor for th the e shaft Is broken in two midway of its length moreover segments of considerable size have flaked oft off but enough remains to satisfy the observer that it had been quarried and given shape for a pur pose the most plausible being that of use in road construction and road upkeep at the yasuna end the road takes oft off from a small pyramid at the cen ler ter of a great groat number of mounds originally structures of various cyp ss es which now however except for a single acropolis like building still standing but badly weathered comprises all that is left of this one time important city study shows that tor for forty three miles out of una the road runs almost perfect ly STRAIGHT and that in the nine teen and one half remaining miles its original direction changes but four times and ONLY SLIGHTLY at that in width the road is from thir ty to thirty four feet wide in height to which t is built up above the sur face of the terrain it varies from TWO to EIGHT feet 1 arious discoveries villa reported observing confine ing evidence that the road once con necked numerous settlements some of them of considerable size atin at in alongside the road he came upon small platforms from thirteen to sixteen feet in height but badly disintegrated the purpose of such structures is unknown but he thinks they may have served as wayside shrines villa also found evidence that at various points walls had once been built squarely across the road as if to calse it perhaps defensively to hostile groups upon nearing the coba terminus another feature of particular inter est to be noted that of six stones about 2 feet high 1 feet wide and 1 foot thick inscribed one one face of each with ancient maya hier these stones are scatter ed along the road surface at fairly equal intervals over a distance of seven miles when discovered a few years ago they were lying flat but whether this was their original position or whether they stood upright is not known the glyphs date glyphs is what they are believed to be are too badly eroded to be decipher able but enough remains to show that the carving as originally done was well executed fj eric thompson formerly for of the staff of carnegie institution who has made a special study of the mon of the coba region thinks it possible that these inscribed stones were placed for the purpose of re cording the date when a section of the road was completed or ed others have suggested that they might have been set up to mark dis after the manner of the mile stones of many of our modern roads method of construction in the construction of their roads the ancient engineers began by di dig g ging down to hardpan which la Is near the surface and erecting retaining walls on either side to the height to which they desired to bring the road these walls were built of large roughly faced limestone set in mortar into the space between the walls a layer of heavy boulders some of them two or three feet in length and weighing many hundreds of pounds were carefully laid and the spaces between chinked with smaller stones fitted and hammer ed into position other courses followed each of successively smaller boulders and stones quite as carefully placed un til the road had been brought to requisite height whereupon a layer of rock broken into much finer es was added after this was ham or rolled into a hard level surface a final ot mortar ce i meat ment was applied great avas I 1 the modern indian name for the ancient stone roads of yucatan is plural which means literally white road the name is of remote origin it is probable that it is the name the builders themselves used though this is not certain however this may be the name is peculiarly expressive tor for the surfacing coat of mortar cement which was applied was made of lime mixed with finely sifted white earth called which un der the tropical sun must have gly en the roads a dazzling appearance quite as dazzling perhaps as the great white ways of our own 6 cat TL les earl morris of the carnegie in ution staff who has studied the processes used by the maya build ers who worked with stone says that this or white earth Is a sort of breccia or conglomerate lying beneath the limestone cap rock of the country and that in ancient urn tim es it was mixed with slacked lime as masons with ua usi today use sand he ile adds that the miners burrowed for it wl brever digging was easiest and that the region around chichen itza Is full of caves eaves where it was dug one of them being twenty feet deep and large enough to sheftel two hundred people it was cement made in this way that was used to such good effect in temple construction providing hard and durable coverings tor for the floors and the fine grained wall sur bur faces of glossy smoothness so suit able as backgrounds tor for the frescoes and murals with which the ancient artists adorned the walls morris states that in the old days when there was less hurry the took great pains in preparing cement and stirred and re moistened it dal ly for many days and when applied tamping it with wooden mauls for hours on end until it became as pore less and as compact as stone he ile also says that when needed the surface paste as it was being tamped and finally tro was re moistened with a solution made by soaking the bark of the chilon tree in water given treatment the cement Is not only rendered practically impervious to water but under J the trowel of the mason it takes on a magnificent polish probable time of construction although evidence of the existence of these have been found at a few points in the yucatan la nevertheless the coba region 1 a unique in ili the extent and elaborateness of its system of causeways six teen ot of these raised roads varying in length from a few miles to sixty two and a halt miles the length of the yasuna coba road terminate within the great body of ruins about the chain of lakes harry E D politick of the ansti aution staff who has visited coba three times in study of the ruins ruths r s commenting upon the time when the roads were built saya says that it Is high ly improbable that work of such magnitude and representing such or effort could have been ac complis hed in a late and decadent period of maya history ills his study of the architectural features of the co ba ruins discloses evidence of two periods of construction to the earlier of which belong the great major ity of the structures also that the workers of the time had all the tech skill and knowledge the road construction demanded in the absence of all evidence to the contrary he lie that it Is best to con sider the as having been roughly contemporaneous with the structures of the earlier period one cannot be too sure of dates when dealing with maya history but there la Is much evidence to support the statement that at the middle of the fourth century A D the coba region was occupied by an organized and established people who were cap able of building these great cause ways it la Is probable that they were begun during this century and corn com plated before the end of the seventh built top for men afoot why they were built Is another mystery the maya bad had no beasts of burden aa as had the road building inca of peru nor wheeled vehicles as had the romans the greatest road builders of ancient times yet in durability in evidence of careful workmanship and in prodigious gous ex pend ture iture of labor in construction and upkeep the roads to coba must have compared favorably with those of both apparently these highways were built tor for travel agoot and for men i bearing palin quins and carrying burdens upon their backs it if so and it if these sixteen known roads were utilized to capacity what an abaz ing picture of the activity of that day and region the imagination presents four files of men with their loads could easily pass so wide were the roads two lines going in one direction 1 and two in the other the significance road building calls tor for organized community action of relatively high order savage man builds no roads nor has he conscious need for them when however mankind advances to the settlement forming stage of civilization the hunter s trail becomes inadequate and road making be gins the magnificent causeways of coba testify eloquently to the fact continued on next page 1 ROADS CONTINUED that the maya of 0 that region and pe in possessing the capacity to plan and execute community projects calling for so great a degree ot of or g ability had come a long way on the path ot of civilization they also indicate that coba the focal point ot of all these great roads must have a powerful influence in all matters touching the life of the people throughout a great area roun abolt about it Is strange as well as disquiet ing that a people as numerous and as virile as the coba region con talked could disappear that their farms their homes their cities their villages and catiel cities their temples the great causeways would be swallowed up by the jungle and that their very existence even could be so nearly forgotten Caru carnegie egle institution |
