American Antiquities: Corroborative of the Book of Mormon (14 May 1859)

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES,

CORROBORATIVE OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

(Continued from page 307.)

(From the Saturday Magazine, Aug 30, 1842.)

“About three centuries and a half have elapsed since the existence of America was made known to the inhabitants of the Eastern hemisphere. From that period to the present time, vast numbers of books have been written about the New World; but little has been done to dispel the darkness which broods over its early history. We have some accounts of the discoveries and conquests of the Spaniards; but from the sixteenth century to our own times, the conquerors seem to have been jealous of giving any information respecting the regions under their dominion, which included those parts of the continent that were inhabited by the only nations of the aborigines who were found in the possession of the arts of civilized life. From ignorance of the monuments which still exist to attest that the population of these parts of America was, at some period, far removed from a state of barbarism, authors have very generally been inclined to treat the glowing accounts given by the Spaniards of the splendour of Peru and Mexico and the civilization of the inhabitants as coloured by that spirit of exaggeration of which travellers are proverbially accused. From the same cause, it is only of late years that the architectural remains of the native Americans have been thought of as likely to afford a clue to the much agitated question of the origin of that people.— a question on which so many strange hypotheses have been broached by different writers, and one, into the intricacies of which we have no intention of entering. But without doing so, we may safely assume that the Western continent was most probably peopled originally by emigrants from the Old World, who crossed over tire narrow sea which divides the north-eastern shores of Asia from the north-western of America; while the arts of civilization were either carried with them or subsequently diffused over parts of the country by strangers from some nation in a higher state of improvement. driven perhaps by tempests over a wide expanse of ocean. We ascribe the superiority of the people who were found in the regions which embrace Mexico and Peru over the natives of America to knowledge derived from a foreign source, rather than from their own origination, because we do not believe that man is capable of raising himself from a state of complete barbarism by his own unassisted powers. All nations appear to have been indebted to strangers for the first impulse towards civilization, as if the torch had been in the first instance kindled from above, and afterwards passed round the world, from one people to another."

(Extract from Colonel Galindo’s Report of his commissioned examination of the Ruins of Central America in 1834 )

“The city of Copan extended along the bank of its river a length of two miles, as is evidenced by the remains of its fallen edifices; the principal of these was the temple, standing at the eastern extremity of the city, and built perpendicularly from the bank of the river to a height of more than 40 yards. It is 250 yards long from north to south, and 200 yards broad. Stone steps lead from the land sides to the elevations above, and again descend to a square in the centre of the edifice, 20 yards above the level of the river. Through a gallery, scarcely four feet high, and two-and-a-half broad, one can crawl from this square through a more elevated part of the temple overhanging the river, and have from the face of the precipice an interesting view. Among many excavations, I have made one at the point where this gallery comes out into the square. I first opened into the entrance of the gallery itself, and digging lower down I broke into a sepulchral vault, whose floor is twelve feet below the level of the square. It is more than six feet high, ten feet long, and five-and-a-half broad, and lies due north and south according to the compass. It has two niches on each side, and both these and the floor of the vault were full of red earthenware dishes and pots. I found more than fifty, many of them full of human bones, packed with lime; also several sharp-edged and pointed knives of chaya, (a brittle stone, called itzli by the Mexicans,) and a small head, apparently representing Death, its eyes being nearly closed, and the lower features distorted. The back of the head is symmetrically perforated by holes; and the whole is of most exquisite workmanship, cut out or cast from a fine green stone, as are also two beads I found in the vault, with quantities of oyster and periwinkle shells brought from the sea-shore. There were also stalactites taken from some cave. All the bottom of the vault was strewed with fragments of bones, and beneath was a coat of lime on a solid stone floor. There are seven obelisks still standing and entire in the temple and its immediate vicinity, and there are numerous others, fallen and destroyed, throughout the ruins of the city. These stone columns were ten or eleven feet high, and about three broad, with a less thickness. On one side are worked, in basso-relievo, human figures standing square to the front, with their hands resting on their breasts; they are dressed with caps on their heads and sandals on their feet, and are clothed in highly-adorned garments, generally reaching half-way down the thigh, but sometimes in long pantaloons. Opposite the figure, at a distance of three or four yards, is commonly placed a stone table or altar: the back and sides of the obelisk generally contain phonetic hieroglyphics in squares. Hard and fine stones are inserted in many obelisks, as they, like the rest of the works in the ruins, are of a species of soft stone, which is found in a neighbouring and most extensive quarry. There is one very remarkable stone table in the temple, two feet four inches high, and four feet two inches square. Its top contains 49 square tablets of hieroglyphics, and its four sides are occupied by sixteen human figures, in basso-relievo, sitting cross-legged on cushions carved in the stone, and bearing each in their hands something like a fan or flapper. Monstrous figures are found amongst the ruins: one represents the colossal head of an alligator, having in its jaws a figure with a human face, but the paws of an animal: another monster has the appearance of a gigantic toad, in an erect posture, with human arms and tiger’s claws.

On neighbouring hills, to the east and west, stand two obelisks containing hieroglyphics alone, in squares. These obelisks (like the generality of those in the city,) are painted red, and are thicker and broader at the top than the bottom. Mounts of stone, formed by fallen edifices, are found throughout the neighbouring country.”

(To be continued.)