WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?

Hokitika Guardian, 7 March 1929, Page 7

WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?

NEW LIGHT ON OLD CONTROVERSY. In the article printed below, Dr Thomas Grann, the leading English authority on the A lava—greatest of ancient Amofricam civilisations—throws new light on an old controversy. Did Asiatic people reach America before Columbus? Dr Gann gave his answer first from Cambodia, where, as in Central America, there are vast ruins ol deserted cities. After his travels in Cambodia and Java, Dr Gann, who led two expeditions to Central America (British Honduras). is joining a new British Museum expediton along the Southern Guatemala and British Honduras frontier.

By Thomas Gann, M.R.C.S., F.R.G.S. F.R.A.I. SAIGON (Cambodia.) June 10. Since that momentous March 4th. 1493, when Columbus landed in the Old AVorld after his first voyage to the New, controversy has raged about the question of his claim to priority in the discovery. America was obviously discovered ages before the arrival of Columbus, as its large a.nd widely distributed aboriginal population indicates, and it is now generally believed that the first immigrants to the New World arrived from Nortli-Eastern Asia, via the Behring Straits, in late Neolithic days. Apart, however, from this earliest discovery of the continent, recent investigations in General America seem to indicate that somewhere in the early centuries of our era there reached the shores of Central America a small band of Asiatic immigrants, probably from Indonesia, or lndo-China. Fusing with the Maya tribes of Central America, they left in their civilisation—the highest- ever evolved on the A m.er ica n conti nent—nnmistnkeable traces of Asiatic influence, more particularly in its religion, sculpture, and architecture. The most probable localities for these Asiatic wanderers to have set out from (judging from the remains found there) were Camliodia, Java and Ceylon, so ] determined to visit the ancient sites at these places, and draw my own conclusions as to their resemblance to the ruined cities of Central America from facts observed on the spot. With this object in view I. arrived at Saigon, the principal port of Tndo-China, in November last.

GOLDEN-HUED TEMPLE. From Saigon to Angkor, the nearest ruined city, is about 400 miles, over a road of deadly monotony, carved on an carthern causeway, without a hill to relieve the dullness of the journey. Soon after leaving the little village of Siem Reap one gets one’s first view of the great temple of Angkor Vatsurely the most stupendously magnficent achievement of human hands on earth. Evening is-the time for a first view of the temple, for then the vast facade and five great central domes, clearly silhoutted against the darkling sky, their cunning graduated perspective lending them an appearance of even greater vastnesa and majesty then they possess assume in the rays of the setting sun a reddish tinge, as if the whole huge structure were of dull red gold. The origin of the Khmers—the builders of Angkor—like that of the Maya of Central America, is buried in mystery. But there is a curious parallelism between them. Both emerge from the mists of pre-liistorv in the early years of the Christian era, found groat cities, built vast temples, and reach a high state of civilisation. The temple of Angkor Vat, is surrounded by a rectangular moat 10 kilometres long by 200 metres broad, lined throughout with great blocks of cut stone. Little bamboo rafts, decorated with painted masts, from which descend strings of flow'ers, and carrying cargoes of fruit and cakes, are still launched on tlve moat as offerings to tne gods by the villagers. The same ceremony was practised by the Maya, who threw valuable articles, and even young girls, into the great cenote as offerings to the God of Rain. Crossing the moat on the west side is a stone causeway, approaching which one receives one’s first reminder of the Maya area. There., hooded, seven-fold, head erect, stretches a vast stone serpent—the sacred Naga—guarding each side of the approach to the temple where he was worshipiied, just as the stone image of Cuculcan, the sacred crested serpent of the Maya, guards tne approaches to his temples throughout Yucatan.

LIKE MAYA ROOMS. Across the causeway one is faced by a great cruciform porch, which forms the western approach to the temple, and here a surprise awaited me, for on entering I seemed to be transported, as if by magic, to some Maya, temple in Central America. There were the same narrow rooms, opening into each other by doorways with sculptured lintels, roofed with the cantilever, or Maya arch, and the. same square columns, sculptured on all four sides, supporting a narrow verandah. The same basic; architectural concept is clearly to be distinguished in both—'namely, a vast stone-faced substructure, supporting on its truncated summit a temple whose main characteristics are long, narrow galleries with arched ceilings, courts supported on rows of sculptured square columns, and elaborately decorated turrets which

serve no other purpose than to enhance the dignity and beauty of the building- ' * f ' Perhaps the mast remarkable tiling about both Maya, and Cambodian architecture is that in neither case did the architects over discover the principal of the true arch. Both employed the same device of overlapping courses of stone approaching each other till only a small interval was left at the summit, which was bridged «over by large flat flags.

PANEL OF 10,000 FIGURES. The first storey of the great central temple stands upon a.n immense stone substructure and is surrounded by a verandahed gallery, the walls of which are decorated with panels of exquisitely executed has reliefs recording in the mast part battle scenes, with chariots, cavalry, infantry, and elephants, one particular realistic scene depicting the battle of the apes led by Hantiman, against the demon inhabitants of Ceylon, led by the King Havana. There are probably 10,000 figures sculptured on this lialf-mile or so of pannelling—enought in those days to have provided all the combatants for a fair-sized battle. The infantry are indistinguishable from those depicted at Chiehen Itza, Yucatan armed with shielded spear, throwing javelin and bow and arrow, and clothed only in the maxtoi, or loin cloth. The second storey of the temple rears it-solf on a stone sub-structure from the centre of the first. It consists of a series of small chambers and long gnlleries, with a large covered court beneath which are four stone-lin-ed tanks approached by flights of steps which were most certainly used as bathing places, probably for the temple dancing girls.

ABSENCE OF DATES. These ha.ve their exact counterpart at many Maya ruins in the small sunk courts, or plazas often approached by stairways, and possibly used for the same purpose. On this storey stand upright stone monoliths, recording gifs to the temple and other historical events. Unfortunately while on the Maya monoliths we can decipher with great accuracy the dates hut not the events recorded, at Angkor the events are clearly to he made out hut all the most important ones lack dates. As giving some idea of the staffs em ployed in these temples, an inscription at Te Prohin, a comparatively minor one, records the fact that there were 18 major and 2,740 ordinary officials 2,232 assistants and Gls dancing girls employed there, and the list of the temple treasures which follows inolud es silk, gold, diamonds, pearls and other jewels. These big staffs denote a dense population, and about the I.oth century Angkor Thom prohabT contained nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants and was without doubt the largest city in the world at that date.