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Sylvanus Morley

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   Photo taken c. 1912 of Sylvanus G. Morley at the Maya site of Copán, in
   Honduras
   Enlarge
   Photo taken c. 1912 of Sylvanus G. Morley at the Maya site of Copán, in
   Honduras

   Sylvanus Griswold Morley ( June 7, 1883– September 2, 1948) was an
   American archaeologist, epigrapher and Mayanist scholar who made
   significant contributions towards the study of the pre-Columbian Maya
   civilization in the early 20th century. He is particularly noted for
   his extensive excavations of the Maya site of Chichen Itza. He also
   published several large compilations and treatises on Maya hieroglyphic
   writing, and wrote popular accounts on the Maya for a general audience.
   To his contemporaries he was one of the leading Mesoamerican
   archaeologists of his day; although more recent developments in the
   field have resulted in a re-evaluation of his theories and works, his
   publications (particularly on calendric inscriptions) are still cited.
   In his directorship of various projects sponsored by the Carnegie
   Institution he oversaw and encouraged a good many others who would go
   on to establish notable careers in their own right. Overall, his
   commitment and enthusiasm for Maya studies would generate the interest
   and win the necessary sponsorship and backing to finance projects which
   would ultimately reveal much about the Maya of former times.

   His involvement in clandestine espionage activities at the behest of
   the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence was another, surprising, aspect
   of his career, which came to light only well after his death.

Early life

   Sylvanus G. Morley was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. After first
   studying civil engineering, he went on to attend Harvard University as
   an undergraduate. Whilst there his interest in archaeology was sparked
   by the arrival in 1904 at the University of a collection of Maya
   artefacts which had been recovered by Edward Herbert Thompson from a
   cenote near the then little-explored Maya site of Chichen Itza. His
   interest in the Maya may have been stirred even earlier than this;
   according to his later colleague A.V. Kidder, H. Rider Haggard's novel
   Heart of the World which was based on tales of the "lost cities" of
   Central America was a particular favourite of the young Morley.

   Morley switched to the study of antiquities, and as part of his
   researches went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to study the sites and
   architecture of the ancient Pueblo peoples (Anasazi). His
   contemporaries in this work included the noted artist Georgia O'Keeffe.
   Morley made some significant contributions to the defining of a
   particular "Santa Fe" style of pre-Columbian architecture.

First expeditions and espionage work

   Morley graduated from Harvard in 1908. The next six years he spent
   travelling through Central America and Mexico, engaged in fieldwork
   with the School of American Archaeology.

   This period coincided with the First World War, and Morley's activities
   in the region now appear to have been largely a cover for the gathering
   of intelligence and reporting on the movements of German operatives in
   the region, which might have been of interest to the U.S. Government.
   According to recent investigations, Morley was one of several ONI
   operatives working in the region under the guise of conducting
   scholarly research. Their mission was to search out evidence for
   pro-German and anti-American agitation in the Mexico-Central American
   region, and to look for secret German submarine bases (which turned out
   to be non-existent). The cover of an archaeologist provided Morley with
   a ready excuse to be travelling the countryside armed with photographic
   equipment. Several times Morley needed to convince suspicious soldiers
   of his bona fides, and was almost unmasked on occasion.

   Morley was to produce extensive analyses (he filed over 10,000 pages of
   reports) on many issues and observations of the region, including
   detailed coastline charting and identifying political and social
   attitudes that could be seen to be "threatening" to U.S. interests.
   Some of these reports bordered on economic spying, relaying the
   activities of the local competitors and opponents of large U.S.
   companies present in the region, such as the United Fruit Company and
   International Harvester.

   As the output of his later work was to prove, Morley was also a genuine
   scholar and archaeologist with an abiding interest in the region.
   However, his research activities in this period seem to have largely
   played a secondary role to his espionage duties. The authors of the
   research into his spying claim Morley to have been "the best secret
   agent the United States produced during World War I". However, a number
   of archaeologists and others share some misgivings about the ethical
   nature of some of this work, and the suspicion it throws upon others
   engaged in fieldwork today (particularly, those who work or seek to
   work in "sensitive" government-controlled areas).

   Morley did, however, publish his first major work drawn from these
   field trips, An Introduction to the Study of Maya Hieroglyphs, in 1915.

Carnegie Institution and Chichen Itza proposal

   el Castillo; one of the larger structures at the Chichen Itza site. The
   excavation and restoration of this important Maya site were largely due
   to Morley; two sides of the building shown here were rebuilt under his
   direction.
   Enlarge
   el Castillo; one of the larger structures at the Chichen Itza site. The
   excavation and restoration of this important Maya site were largely due
   to Morley; two sides of the building shown here were rebuilt under his
   direction.

   At the end of the War in 1918, Morley was made an associate of the
   Carnegie Institution of Washington. He soon came to them with a plan to
   excavate and restore the large Maya site of Chichen Itza. Morley's
   vision was for an ambitious 20-year plan of seasonal investigations and
   restorative work for the site, which had actually been (perhaps
   contentiously) purchased by Edward H. Thompson in 1895 for the sum of
   75 United States dollars. To fund the restoration work, Morley proposed
   a scheme whereby contributions drawn from public subscriptions would be
   used, with a further view to develop the site for tourism. Indeed, one
   of the factors which encouraged Morley in selecting this site was its
   proximity to the major Yucatán centre of Mérida, whose Governor
   supported the construction of a road to the site. The Carnegie board
   looked favourably upon Morley's proposals, and the work soon began in
   earnest with Morley as the director.

Fieldwork in Mexico and Central America

   Morley was to devote the next 18 years working in the Maya region,
   overseeing the seasonal archaeological digs and restoration projects,
   returning to the United States in the off-season to give a series of
   lectures on his finds. Although primarily involved with the work at
   Chichen Itza, Morley also took on responsibilities which extended
   Carnegie-sponsored fieldwork to other Maya sites, such as Yaxchilan,
   Coba, Copán, Quiriguá, Uxmal, Naranjo, Seibal and Uaxactun. Morley is
   credited as having rediscovered the last of these sites (located in the
   Petén region of Guatemala, to the north of Tikal). Believing that there
   must be many more as-yet unknown ancient Maya sites in the area, Morley
   advertised a "bounty" in return for news of such sites to the local
   chicleros, who ranged through the jungles seeking exploitable sources
   of natural gum; in due course he was rewarded with the information
   which led to its rediscovery. He also bestowed its name, uaxactun, from
   the Mayan languages, after a stela inscription he found there which
   recorded a Maya Long Count Calendar date in the 8th cycle (i.e.,
   "8-tuns"; the name could also literally mean "eight stones", and its
   pronunciation is also perhaps a pun on "Washington", the home of his
   sponsoring institute).

   During this time, Morley established a trustworthy reputation with the
   local Yucatec Maya around Mérida, who were still suffering from the
   depredations of the Caste War of Yucatán against the Mexican
   government. Over the years he was to act almost as their representative
   in several matters, although he was equally careful not to upset the
   Mexican and U.S. governments.

   His directorship over all of the Institute's activities in the Maya
   region was soon to run into difficulty. In 1926, a dispute arose with
   the Mexican government over the ownership of the plantation in which
   Chichen Itza was situated; however, the digs and reconstruction effort
   were able to continue after some interruptions. The Carnegie board had
   also begun to form the opinion that managing multiple projects was
   perhaps not Morley's forté, with cost and schedule overruns becoming
   compounded with criticisms levelled at the quality of some of the
   research produced. In 1929 the overall directorship of the programme
   was passed to A.V. Kidder, and Morley was left to concentrate on
   Chichen Itza.

   Slightly built and not noted for possessing a strong constitution,
   Morley's health would suffer and deteriorate over the years spent
   labouring in the Central American jungles under often-adverse
   conditions. Several times, he was incapacitated by recurring bouts of
   malaria, and he had to be hospitalised after separately contracting
   colitis and then amoebic dysentery the following year. During the 1930s
   it also became evident that he had developed cardiac difficulties,
   which would plague him for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless,
   although he "detested" the jungle conditions he persevered in his work
   with evident enthusiasm.

   In between overseeing the projects and arising from his own researches,
   Morley published several treatises on Maya hieroglyphics and his
   interpretations on their meaning. These include a survey of
   inscriptions at Copán (1920) and a larger study (a massive tome, over
   2,000 pages in five volumes) encompassing many of the sites he had
   investigated in the Petén region (1932–38).

Influences on other scholars

   Many a Maya scholar and archaeologist were to be given their first
   opportunity and employment under Morley's tutelage, working on the
   various Carnegie projects. Of these, perhaps the two most notable were
   J. Eric S. Thompson and Tatiana Proskouriakoff. Thompson would shortly
   become the field's most dominant figure and its uncontested expert;
   together with Morley, he would be most responsible for promulgating the
   view of the ancient Maya as peaceable astronomers, obsessed with time
   and calendric observations. This view would become the prevailing one
   for the next several decades. Proskouriakoff would also go on to
   establish a stellar career and a lifelong association with the Carnegie
   Institution; however, her researches would ultimately provide the
   primary convincing evidence which was to later disprove much of what
   had been maintained by Thompson and Morley.

Eric Thompson

   In 1925 a young English Cambridge anthropology student named John Eric
   Sidney Thompson wrote to Morley seeking employment with the Carnegie
   programme on digs in Central America. Thompson had studied Morley's
   1915 work, and from that taught himself Maya calendrics, which were a
   particular passion for Morley. Thompson was accordingly hired by the
   Carnegie Institution at Morley's urging, and he soon found himself at
   work in Chichen Itza, involved with its architectural reconstruction
   (for which task Thompson had no particular qualifications). During the
   1925–26 season, Thompson became well-acquainted with Morley, the two of
   them along with their wives (the newly married Thompson was in fact on
   his honeymoon) making several side-trips together.

   However, at the end of the 1926 season Thompson left Carnegie's employ
   to take up a post offered by Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.
   This post offered Thompson far greater freedom and diversity for his
   research. Thompson and Morley were to remain close and like-minded
   colleagues in spite of this move.

Tatiana Proskouriakoff

   Towards the end of the Chichen Itza project, Morley came across the
   drawings of a young artist and draftsperson, Tatiana Proskouriakoff,
   who as an unpaid excavator had accompanied a 1936–37 University of
   Pennsylvania Museum expedition to the Maya site of Piedras Negras. The
   quality of her reconstructive panorama drawings (depicting what the
   site "might have looked like" when in use) so impressed Morley that he
   determined to enrol her onto the Carnegie staff. However, this was in
   the midst of the Great Depression and funds for hiring were scarce; it
   was also not clear whether Morley had the appropriate authority to do
   so. After several entreaties, Morley again came up with an innovative
   funding scheme whereby he devised two campaigns to raise money by
   subscription to send Proskouriakoff to Copán and the Yucatán. These
   were successful, and in 1939, Proskouriakoff transferred onto the
   Carnegie payroll, and was duly dispatched to Copán to gather data for
   reconstructive drawings of that site. Morley's support of
   Proskouriakoff was to prove fortuitous to Maya scholarship, as she
   would go on to a lengthy and successful career with the Carnegie
   Institution and to be lauded as one of the foremost Maya scholars of
   her time.

Excavations at Chichen Itza

Context

   A Chac Mool statue, first identified by le Plongeon but later
   extensively documented by Morley's Chichen Itza excavations. This type
   of statue (whose purpose remains unclear, presumed to be related to
   ritual sacrifice) is also characteristic of Toltec sites, and thus
   provided a linkage between Chichen Itza and Central Mexico.
   Enlarge
   A Chac Mool statue, first identified by le Plongeon but later
   extensively documented by Morley's Chichen Itza excavations. This type
   of statue (whose purpose remains unclear, presumed to be related to
   ritual sacrifice) is also characteristic of Toltec sites, and thus
   provided a linkage between Chichen Itza and Central Mexico.

   When Morley and his team first arrived in 1924 to commence their
   excavations, Chichen Itza was an abandoned and sprawling complex of
   several large ruined buildings and many smaller ones, most of which lay
   concealed under mounds of earth and vegetation. Some areas of the site
   had previously been surveyed, photographed and documented independently
   in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by highly-regarded
   authorities such as Teoberto Maler, Alfred Maudslay and Eduard Seler,
   who although they had meticulously recorded their findings, had not
   done much in the way of extensive digging. An earlier attempt at
   excavation, carried out by the amateur (and somewhat eccentric)
   enthusiast Augustus Le Plongeon and his wife, Alice Dixon had been poor
   and yielded little of value (le Plongeon did however recover and name a
   type of statue he called a " chacmool", which would become one of the
   site's most famous motifs). Despite the interesting results of these
   prior investigations, the bulk of the site looked much as it did when
   it was first visited in 1842 by the explorers John Lloyd Stephens and
   Frederick Catherwood, whose detailed travel reports had first
   re-ignited interest in the general area.

   The site itself is located about 120 km (75 miles) east of Mérida, on
   the inland plains of north-central Yucatán. It had been known to
   Europeans since the first recorded visits by the 16th century
   conquistadores. During the conquest of Yucatán, the Spanish attempted
   to gain a foothold over the fiercely-resisting locals by setting up an
   encampment in the site in the early 1530s, as a base for their attacks
   on the inland region. They were however dissuaded from this enterprise
   after several months of protracted fighting, and abandoned it (having
   caused some further, but not extensive, damage). When they returned to
   the area in 1542 they finally succeeded in establishing a capital at
   Mérida, which they built upon another (still-inhabited) Maya city
   called T'ho (or Tiho).

   Chichen Itza had evidently been functionally abandoned long before the
   Spanish first came, although the local indigenous Yucatec Maya still
   lived in settlements nearby, and even within its former boundaries (but
   in recently-built wooden huts, not the stone buildings themselves). The
   name "Chichen Itza" is known from the earliest recorded Spanish
   accounts —such as Diego de Landa's— of these local inhabitants, for
   whom the site had long been a place of pilgrimage and ceremony. The
   name (chich'en itza in modern Yukatek orthography) means roughly "mouth
   of the well of the Itza", the "well" being the nearby sacred cenote
   (water-filled sinkhole) and "Itza" being the name of the people who
   were reputed to be its former inhabitants. Over the next three
   centuries after the Conquest, the site remained relatively undisturbed
   until the arrival of Stephens and Catherwood, although several
   plantations were established nearby.

   At the time its full extent was not at all clear, but today it is
   recognised as one of the largest Maya sites in the Yucatán region. How
   long ago the site had been functionally abandoned (not including the
   ongoing presence of local Maya farmers) was not immediately apparent,
   although it appeared to have been recently, in comparison with the
   seemingly older abandoned sites of the central and southern Maya
   region.

Major finds

   The "Temple of the Warriors", excavated by Morley's team. The rows of
   the "Thousand Columns" can be seen in its foreground, and extending off
   to the right.
   Enlarge
   The "Temple of the Warriors", excavated by Morley's team. The rows of
   the "Thousand Columns" can be seen in its foreground, and extending off
   to the right.

   In 1924, armed with a renewable ten-year digging concession from the
   Mexican government, Morley, his field director Earl H. Morris, artists
   Ann Axtel Morris and Jean Charlot, and several others began their first
   explorations. They selected an area within what appeared to be the
   central plaza of the site, where the capitals of some columns lay
   exposed. Much to their surprise they uncovered row upon row of
   free-standing columns- surprising, since such columns hardly ever
   figured in Classic Maya architecture. This complex (now called the
   "Complex of a Thousand Columns", although there are not actually as
   many), un-Maya-like in both execution and arrangement, added
   confirmation to earlier speculations that Chichen Itza was something of
   an enigma. This arrangement had much more in common with the
   architectural styles of civilizations in central Mexico (more than a
   thousand kilometres away) than that of the Classic or Pre-Classic Maya.
   In particular, this complex and some others which were gradually
   revealed appeared to have much in common with structures built at Tula,
   believed to be the capital of the Toltecs and which was located about
   100 km north of present-day Mexico City.

   Over the next few seasons the team expanded their digs, recovering
   other anomalous structures from the earthen mounds, such as the Temple
   of the Jaguar and the Temple of the Warriors. In 1927 they discovered
   an older structure underneath this latter, which they called the
   "Temple of the Chacmool" after a further example found of this
   distinctive statuary. These structures had frescoes which again
   exhibited a non-Maya style, or at least a hybrid of Maya and non-Maya.
   They also worked on the reconstruction of el Caracol, a unique circular
   building believed (and later confirmed) to be an observatory. A
   separate archaeological dig, this one under the Mexican government, had
   also commenced working the site; the two projects divided up the areas
   to excavate, continuing side-by-side for several years, in a somewhat
   guarded but nonetheless cordial fashion.

   While Morris oversaw day-to-day operations, and Charlot sketched the
   murals, Morley occupied himself with copying all the inscriptions he
   could find, particularly the date portions. Since most of these
   inscription dates at the site were recorded in an abbreviated form
   known as the "Short Count", which only identified an event within a
   span of about 260 years, it was difficult to pin down in which
   particular span an event referred to in the inscriptions occurred.
   Towards the end of the project Morley's work on these was to be
   superseded somewhat by a more-comprehensive analysis made by Hermann
   Beyer in 1937. In this work, Beyer would note:

          I frequently have differed with the opinions of Dr. Sylvanus G.
          Morley. This is easily explained by the fact that he is one of
          the few archaeologists who have studied the hieroglyphs of
          Chichen Itza. While I agree with his results on the inscriptions
          of the Old Empire cities which contain many dates and time
          periods, I find that his method of dealing solely with
          calendrical matter fails at Chichen Itza, since there are but
          few hieroglyphs of that nature.

   The later years of the project would increasingly concentrate on
   completing the restorative work on the principal structures, for Morley
   always had an eye on the dual purpose of the project: to research, but
   also rebuild to generate the promised revenue from tourism.

Result summary

   Columnar statues in the form known as "Atlantids", representing Toltec
   warriors. The examples shown here are from the Toltec site of Tula
   (Tollan), north of Mexico City; similar examples and styles found at
   Chichen Itza by Morley provided further evidence of Maya-Mexica
   cultural contact
   Enlarge
   Columnar statues in the form known as "Atlantids", representing Toltec
   warriors. The examples shown here are from the Toltec site of Tula
   (Tollan), north of Mexico City; similar examples and styles found at
   Chichen Itza by Morley provided further evidence of Maya-Mexica
   cultural contact

   The net research result of their excavations revealed Chichen Itza to
   be an unusual mixture of building styles: not only was there a wide
   variety of Maya styles such as Puuc, Rio Bec and Chenes, but a
   significant presence of Mexican influences such as El Tajín, but more
   particularly Toltec. The evidence indicated the site had been inhabited
   since at least the mid-Classic, but that a particular florescence had
   occurred in the Post-Classic, when the site was apparently a major
   power. From their results, that of others and some documented tales of
   contact-era Maya peoples, a view was formed that Chichen Itza had
   actually been invaded and conquered sometime in the 10th century by
   Toltec warriors from the far west, who maintained their hold over the
   local Maya for another century or so, only in turn to be replaced by a
   later mixed Maya-Mexica group known as the Itza. Later evidence led to
   the suggestion that the actual year of this invasion as 987, and
   identified its leader with a legendary Toltec ruler called Topiltzin Ce
   Acatl Quetzalcoatl after the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl (
   K'ulk'ulkan in Yucatec).

   Morley was in general opposed to ideas that the Maya had been
   influenced by other external groups, but in this case, since the
   conquest occurred in the "degenerate" Post-Classic phase he found it
   acceptable. This view of the Toltec invasion of Yucatán became the one
   maintained by the majority of Mayanists. However, recent research from
   the mid-1990s onwards has now questioned this orthodoxy, to the point
   where many now hold an actual invasion did not take place, but the
   similarities in style are largely due to cultural diffusion and trade,
   and that in fact there is evidence that the diffusion in this period
   flowed in both directions..

   The chronology of Chichen Itza continues to be a source of debate, and
   the hoped-for answers to the mystery of the Classic Maya decline
   elusive (wholesale "Mexicanisation" by invading forces ruled out by the
   lack of these indicators in the central and southern sites). However,
   the Carnegie excavations did add significantly to the corpus of
   available information, and are notable for their scope alone, if not
   for fine details and quality of research. The site's reconstruction by
   Carnegie has proved to be a lasting one, and the site today is among
   the most visited of pre-Columbian ruins in all of Central America and
   Mexico, with in excess of a million visitors per year.

Project completion and final years

   After almost twenty years, Carnegie's Chichen Itza project wound to a
   close in 1940, its restorative and investigative work complete and its
   objectives substantially met. Morley returned to the United States to
   take up directorships in the School of American Research and the Museum
   of New Mexico. He also started work on a large-scale work on ancient
   Maya society, which he completed and published in 1946. This was to be
   one of his more successful works (outside of his popular writings in
   magazines), and has been posthumously revised and reprinted several
   times.

   However, Morley would not again return to the region in which he had
   spent so much time and with whose investigations he had become almost
   synonymous; Sylvanus Morley died in 1948, aged 65, two years after this
   last major publication.

Theories and retrospective assessment

   An example of one of Sylvanus Morley's drawings of Maya hieroglyphic
   inscriptions, taken from his 1915 publication. This illustrates the
   text appearing on a lintel in the Chichen Itza building commonly known
   as the "Temple of the Initial Series", as it is the only inscription
   for the site known to show a Maya Long Count Calendar date. The date
   shown here (starting row 2, ending at A5) is 10.2.9.1.9 9 Muluk 7 Sak
   (equivalent to July 30, 878 CE).
   Enlarge
   An example of one of Sylvanus Morley's drawings of Maya hieroglyphic
   inscriptions, taken from his 1915 publication. This illustrates the
   text appearing on a lintel in the Chichen Itza building commonly known
   as the "Temple of the Initial Series", as it is the only inscription
   for the site known to show a Maya Long Count Calendar date. The date
   shown here (starting row 2, ending at A5) is 10.2.9.1.9 9 Muluk 7 Sak
   (equivalent to July 30, 878 CE).

   In his day, Sylvanus Morley was widely regarded as one of the leading
   figures in Maya scholarship, in authority perhaps second only to Eric
   Thompson, whose views he mostly shared. From the late 1920s through to
   perhaps the mid-1970s, the reconstruction of ancient Maya society and
   history pieced together by Morley, Thompson and others constituted the
   "standard" interpretation against which competing views had to be
   measured. However, major advances made in the decipherment of Maya
   hieroglyphic writing and refinements in archaeological data which have
   been made since that time have now called into question much of this
   former "standard" interpretation, overturning key elements and
   significantly revising the Maya historical account. As far as Morley's
   own research is concerned, its reputation for soundness and quality has
   been downgraded somewhat in the light of recent reappraisals; yet he is
   still regarded as an important contributor to the field.

Views on ancient Maya society

   Morley maintained that ancient Maya society was essentially a united
   theocracy, and one which was almost exclusively devoted to astronomical
   observations and mystically noting (even "worshipping") the passage of
   time. These ideas (which Thompson's later work would develop to its
   fullest extent) are now extensively modified, and although astronomical
   and calendric observations were clearly important to the Maya, the
   people themselves are now seen in more historical, realistic
   terms—concerned also with dynastic succession, political conquests, and
   the lives and achievements of actual personages.

   He also believed that the southern centres such as Copán and Quiriguá
   had been united in the Classical period under what he termed the "Old
   Empire". This empire mysteriously collapsed, but the remnants later
   migrated to the northern sites (such as Chichen Itza) to form a "New
   Empire". It is now generally accepted that at no time was the Maya
   region united under a single polity, but rather that individual
   "city-states" maintained a somewhat independent existence, albeit one
   with its fluctuating conquests and local subservience to more dominant
   centres. In support of his view, Morley devised a 4-tier classification
   system of relative importance, which he ascribed to all of the
   then-known main Maya sites (about 116); many more sites are now known,
   and his classification system is now seen as an arbitrary one,
   contradicted in places by the sites' texts which can now be
   (substantially) read.

   Other ideas Morley put forward include the proposal that the ancient
   Maya were the first in Mesoamerica to domesticate maize (Zea mays ssp.
   mays), with the wild variety known as teosinte being its progenitor.
   Recent genetic studies have shown Morley to be largely correct in this,
   although the beginnings of its domestication ( 12,000 to 7,500 years
   ago) pre-dates the establishment of anything resembling Maya society.
   In general, Morley held that the ancient Maya had been the pre-eminent
   civilization of Mesoamerica, from which other cultures had drawn their
   influences. It is now accepted that other societies (such as the
   Zapotec and Olmec) preceded that of the Maya and the influences—such as
   development of writing and the Mesoamerican calendars—were rather the
   other way around; even in the later stages of Maya history, their
   region came under significant influences drawn from central Mexico,
   such as the Toltec "invasion". However, the Maya did also exert a
   widespread influence over neighbouring contemporary cultures, one which
   was significant and not to be overlooked.

Maya writing

   In common with most other Maya scholars, Morley was particularly
   interested in the mysterious nature of the Maya script. The essentials
   of the calendric notation and astronomical data had been worked out by
   the early 20th century, and by the 1930s John E. Teeple had solved
   (with Morley's encouragement) the glyphs known as the "Supplementary
   Series", proving that these referred to the lunar cycle and could be
   used to predict lunar eclipses. However, the bulk of the texts and
   inscriptions still defied all attempts at decipherment, despite much
   concerted effort. It was Morley's view, and one which found wide
   support, that these undeciphered portions would contain only more of
   the same astronomical, calendric and perhaps religious information, not
   actual historical data. As he wrote in 1940,

          ...time, in its various manifestations, the accurate record of
          its principal phenomena, constitutes the majority of Maya
          writing.

   He also wrote that he doubted that any toponym would be found in the
   texts. He supposed that the Maya writing system was one based upon
   ideographic or pictographic principles, without any phonetic
   components. That is to say, each glyph represented whole ideas and
   concepts, and how the symbols were depicted bore no relation to the
   language sounds as spoken by the scribes who had written them.

   The convincing evidence which was to overturn this view became known
   only after Morley's death, starting with Yuri Knorosov's work in the
   1950s. Over the next decades other Mayanists such as Proskouriakoff,
   Michael D. Coe, and David H. Kelley would further expand upon this
   phonetic line of enquiry, which ran counter to the accepted view but
   would prove to be ever more fruitful as their work continued. By the
   mid-1970s, it had become increasingly clear to most that the Maya
   writing system was a logosyllabic one, a mixture of logograms and
   phonetic components that included a fully functional syllabary.

   These realisations led to the successful decipherment of many of the
   texts which had been impenetrable (and almost "dismissed") by Morley
   and the "old school". In retrospect, these breakthroughs could easily
   have been realised earlier had it not been for Morley's, and later Eric
   Thompson's, almost in-principle position against the phonetic approach.
   Consequently, most of Morley's attempts to advance understanding of the
   Maya script have not stood the test of time, and are now superseded.

   Morley's particular passion was the study of the Maya calendar and its
   related inscriptions, and in this respect, he did make some useful
   expositions that have withstood later scrutiny. His talent was not so
   much to make innovations, but rather to publicise and explain the
   workings of the various systems. He was particularly proficient at
   recovering calendar dates from well-worn and weathered inscriptions,
   owing to his great familiarity with the various glyphic styles of the
   tzolk'in, haab' and Long Count elements. Yet in his focus on calendric
   details, he would often overlook or even neglect the documentation of
   other non-calendric aspects of the Maya script; the comprehensiveness
   of some of his publications suffered much as a result. Some leading
   figures from a later generation of Mayanists would come to regard his
   publications as being inferior in detail and scope to that of his
   predecessors, such as Teoberto Maler and Alfred Maudslay—poorer quality
   reproductions, omitted texts, sometimes inaccurate drawings.

Archaeology

   As a director of archaeological excavation projects, Sylvanus Morley
   was well-regarded and liked by his colleagues and his Carnegie board
   employers, his later movement to "lighter duties" notwithstanding. The
   reconstructions of Chichen Itza and other sites were widely admired;
   but in terms of the research output and the resulting documentation
   produced, the legacy of these projects did not quite amount to what
   might have been expected to come from such a lengthy investigation. For
   some later Maya researchers, "...in spite of seventeen years of
   research at Chichén Itzá by Carnegie, this world-famous city yet
   remains an archaeological enigma"; it is comparatively
   little-understood given the amount of work which had gone into it under
   Morley's direction. Coe also comments that many talented people such as
   Thompson would spend more time in restoring the site for later tourism
   than in actual research. Thompson himself would later remark in
   reference to his time working for Carnegie:

          ...in my memory it seems that I personally shifted every blessed
          stone.

Summation

   Despite the later reassessments which were to dull somewhat the shine
   of his achievements, Sylvanus Morley remains a notable and respected
   figure in Maya scholarship. His publications are now generally
   superseded, except for his calendrical compilations. His epigraphic
   work which was his personal abiding interest ("bringing home the
   epigraphic bacon" was a favourite quote of his) is likewise generally
   outdated, although it was widely supported for several decades after
   his death. Perhaps the contributions that today remain the most
   relevant arise from his instigation of the Carnegie research
   programmes, his enthusiasm and support shown to other scholars, and the
   undeniable successes in the restorative efforts that have made the Maya
   sites justly famous. He had particular talents in communicating his
   fascination for the subject to a wider audience, and in his lifetime
   became quite widely known as perhaps the quintessential model of an
   early 20th-century Central American scholar and explorer, complete with
   his ever-present pith helmet. Some have even speculated that his life
   and exploits may have provided some of the inspiration for the
   character of Indiana Jones in the Spielberg films; the Carnegie
   Institute itself mentions that it might also have been Morley's field
   director at Chichen Itza, Earl Morris.

   Sylvanus Morley was also to be remembered as a spokesman and
   representative of the Maya peoples, among whom he spent so much of his
   time, and who otherwise lacked the means to directly address some of
   their concerns with the wider public.

Major works

   Morley's publications include:
     * 1915- An Introduction to the Study of Maya Hieroglyphs
     * 1920- The Inscriptions of Copán
     * 1938- The Inscriptions of Petén (5 vols.)
     * 1946- The Ancient Maya (revised 3rd ed. issued in 1956 by G. W.
       Brainerd)

   In addition to his scholarly work, Morley thought it important to share
   his enthusiasm for the ancient Maya with the general public. He wrote a
   popular series of articles about the Maya and various Maya sites in the
   National Geographic Magazine. Several later archaeologists would recall
   that their youthful exposure to these articles, "vividly illustrated
   with a colour rendition of a purported virgin in filmy huipil [a type
   of clothing] being hurled into the Sacred Cenote", had drawn them into
   the field in the first place.

The "other" Sylvanus G. Morley

   Confusingly, and remarkably, there were actually two Sylvanus Griswold
   Morleys whose careers were contemporaneous. This second Sylvanus G.
   Morley was in fact the older maternal cousin to the first, born
   February 23, 1878, in Baldwinville, Worcester County, Massachusetts.
   This latter was originally baptised Sylvanus Griswold Small ("Sylvanus
   Griswold" being a family "heirloom" name), but changed his surname from
   Small to Morley in his early twenties when his father did likewise. As
   a result, many biographical references confuse details of the two, such
   as interchanging their birthplaces.

   Sylvanus G. (Small) Morley preceded Sylvanus the archaeologist into
   Harvard, and he was later to establish a career as a Professor of
   Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley. In his
   autobiography, the Spanish professor noted the effect of this name
   change and subsequent confusion:

          However, the person with the most right to complain was my
          cousin Sylvanus Griswold Morley, the celebrated archaeologist.
          The move made us homonyms, and gave rise to endless confusion.
          Look in a Who's Who in America and you will learn the facts.
          Look in a library catalog, and you will be lucky to learn
          anything but errors. Sylvanus, a most good-natured soul, never
          protested. He was an undergraduate at Harvard while I was in the
          Grad. School. I sometimes received his Univ. bills, and less
          often, billets doux from his lights of love. I think he has none
          of mine.

   Sylvanus G. (Small) Morley died in 1970; his autobiographical notes
   were published posthumously by his son Thomas.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvanus_Morley"
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