Page:Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx.djvu/140

 20 If we compare the "Sri-Santara " with the cosmogonic diagram of the Mayas, it does not require a great effort of imagination to perceive that it is an amplification of the latter. This being so, let us see what may b,e, in the Maya language, the meaning of the names of its different parts.

The use of the Maya throughout these pages, to explain the meaning of names of deities, nations, and localities whose etymon is not only unknown but a mystery to philologists, will show the necessity of acquiring this most ancient form of speech. It is not a dead language, being the vernacular of well-nigh two millions of our contemporaries. Its knowledge will help us to acquire a better understanding of the origin of the early history of Egyptian civilization, of that of the Chaldeans, and of the nations of Asia Minor. It will also illumine the darkness that surrounds the primitive traditions of mankind. By means of it, we will read the ancient Maya books and inscriptions, reclaim from oblivion part, at least, of the ancient history of America, and thus be enabled to give it its place in the universal history of the world. We shall also be able to comprehend the amount of knowledge, scientific and historical, possessed by the wise men who wrote on stone the most striking events in the life of their nation, their religious and cosmogonic conceptions. Perhaps when the few books written by them that have reached us, and the monumental inscriptions still extant, have been thoroughly deciphered, many among the learned will have to alter their pet opinions, and confess that our civilization may not be the highest ever reached by man. We must keep in mind the fact that we are only emerging from the deep and dark trough that had existed between the Greek and Roman civilizations and ours, and that we are as yet far from having arrived at the top of the wave.