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National Geographic : 1925 Jan
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THIEF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE THE MONJAS, PROBABLY THE PALACE OF TIlE ITZAN RULERS This magnificent edifice, with its several annexes, is 300 feet long, 150 feet wide, and it must have been fully 70 feet high. At least eight different periods of construction or modifica tions of the original building by later additions have been detected, and many of the sculptured stones used in its decoration, practically everywhere except in the second story, belonged to earlier structures now destroyed. The writer uses the chamber in the eastern end of the second story, shown at the left, as his office and bedroom. robed priests leading their victims to the lrink, the spectacular sacrifice itself-a dramatic hurtling through the air into the dark, silent water below-all combined to affect powerfully the aboriginal mind. Thousands were attracted thither, until by the early fifteenth century Chichen Itza had become, because of this great ceremony, the most holy city in the New Empire - nay more, the Mecca of the Mayan World. CARNEGIE INSTITUTION BEGINS TEN YEARS OF EXCAVATION AT THIS SITE For a decade now the Carnegie Insti tution of Washington has had under con sideration a plan for the intensive study of this ancient American metropolis. Several preliminary expeditions had been sent to the site to ascertain the precise nature of the practical as well as the archeological problems involved, and in June, 1923, a formal plan of study cover- ing a period of not less than Io years was presented to the Mexican Government. This plan having been approved by the Direccin de Antropologia, which has jurisdiction over all archeological remains in the Republic of Mexico, an agreement was reached under the terms of which the Carnegie Institution was granted the privilege of carrying on archeological in vestigations at Chichen Itza for a period of io years, beginning January I, 1924. Before actual excavations could be un dertaken, however, it was essential that an accurate survey be made of the city and a base map prepared, to which all subsequent discoveries could be referred, and during the late winter and early spring of last year, through the courtesy of the United States Geological Survey, one of its engineers, Mr. J. O. Kilmartin, madesuchamaponascaleofIto200, locating thereupon all the artificial con structions within the area surveyed, nearly
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