A REMARKABLE FIND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 15, 16 January 1913, Page 7

A REMARKABLE FIND.

WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?

Something of a sensation (says the New York correspondent of the ‘Standaref) has heen caused among British scientists by the news of a very remarkable archaeological discovery just made in Mexico, which helps to prove the theory that has long been held that the ancient civilisations of Mexico and Pern preceding that of the Aztecs wore really of Chinese or Mongolian origin. For more than a year past an expedition, composed of British, American, and Mexican archaeologists, headed by Sir Martin Conway, Prof os sor William Niven, and Senor Ramon Mena, has been searching among the ancient ruins of Mexico and Yucatan, in the hope of unravelling the mystery of the wonderful Maya civilisation. Finally, close to, and partly beneath, the ruins of the ancient city of Tootinaucan, about 19 miles northeast of Mexico City, they uncovered the still more ancient city of Otnmba, which flourished with a wondrous civilisation centuries before the Aztecor Toltecs rose to power, perhaps even before Babylon and Nineveh swayed the destinies of men.

With the financial assistance of the Mexican Government the expedition began the removal of a 6ft. layer of earth, representing the dust and debris of more than 20 centuries. This soon brought into view many evidences of a vast and populous city of a very high order of civilisation. Chief among these was a great pyramid. It is 700 feet square at the base, and its apex is 187 ft. high, while many of the giant blocks of stone in its massive walls must have required extraordinary engineering skill to handle. This pyramid also has its riddle, for tinaxis of the main gallery is coincidental with the mao-netic meridian.

Xear the pyramid was found another remarkable building, called the “CasaPintada,” or painted house. On the ground floor there are six rooms, with smoothlyrpolished floors of white cement. The walls, which are composed of day mixed with fragments of stone, are thickest at the base, and slope slightly upwards. They are also smoothly finished with a thin coating of plaster, which is painted Indian red. On these walls are paintings representing human beings in elaborate garments and head dresses. The colours used in the paintings are green, red, pink, and orange brown. The workmanship is of a high order, the figures being boldly drawn and carefully coloured. Then came the greatest discovery o. all. While excavating near the base of the groat pyramid, Professor Niven unearthed the remains of yet a third civilisation beneath the ruins of ancient Otumba, making three great cities of lost and forgotten races, built one above the other. In what appears to have been a tomb of the lowest city, whose age so far defies calculation Professor Niven found the clay image of a Chinese, with oblique eye-slits, padded coat, flowing trousers, and slippers. Only the queue was lacking to make a complete portrait of a mandarin of the recently defunct Chinese Empire, ft should be remembered, however, that the Chinese did not adopt the queue until after they had been conquered by the Tartar hordes from the north.

The imago is about Tin. in length, and where the arms are broken the ledges of the clay show red, and friable in the centre. The outer surfaceof clay, however, is of granite hardness, and it is only with the greatest difficulty that it can be chipped with a hammer. In the ears are huge rings, and on the head is a skull cap, with a small button in the centre, precisely like that worn by the modern mandarin. The coat, which is loose, and of the type still worn by the older Chinese, is fastened with a 7 \ frog and button, and on the breast Is a circular plate, evidently once covered with a thin layer of beaten gold, but worn bare by contact with the earth for unknown centuries. “This Chinese image,” writes Professor Niven, “was not made'by the Aztecs. It is much older, and proves that the ancient peoples of Mexico were familiar with the Mongol type. It was found in a tomb or bedchamber beneath the ruins of two othei ancient civilisations, 30ft 3in. below the surface. The room., which was 30ft. square, and built of concrete walls, was probably a tomb. On a raised cement platform in the centra lay the skull and bones of a man no! more than oft. in height. His arms were very long, reaching almost tr the knees, while his skull was of r decidedly Mongol type. Around hir neck had been a string of green jade beads—an other link in the Chinese theory, for real jade has never beerfound in Mexico in the natural state. Ueside the skeleton was a string o 1 G 97 pieces of shell. With this mo lie, \ lay the greatest find of all—the little Chinese. It is the first of the kino ever found in Mexico, though Mongo types are found in sufficient number. 1 among the American and Mexican. Indians to argue an Asiatic origin. Ncai the platform was a flower vase, about loin, high, that had -evidently been filled with xochite, the sacred yellow (lower of all those ancient races of Mexico. It should bo borne >u mi id that this image was not a gad. cr rn idol, but an ornament—p roups a portrait done in. clay by some pre'.-.’stoi .c sculptor. The ago of the figure is efficult to determine without further data. Circumstances, however, .v.:r-

rant tlio rough guess th.-t about .WOO years ago (Chinese navigators em sr >d the Pacific in their primitive jrn’ra, and discovered America thousands of years before Columbus was born. Settling there they built a city, and in a grave of one of their number, many years after, a clay image of the man

was buried with him. ihe great city fell into ruins—perhaps through conquest—hut the image lay safe. The ruins of this first city were covered with earth, and there arose through the centuries another splendid and mysterious city. Ibis, too, fell into ruins, and upon it was raised a third metropolis ol some forgotten race of men. At last the third city crumbled into dust, but underneath them all the Chinese image still lay safe and undisturbed, until a group of searchers in the cause of science, in this wonderful twentieth century of ours, have brought it to light, and perhaps through it we may now solve the enigma of the New World’s beginning.”