Among the earliest type known on the Eastern continents is the "Cruz Ansata," called the "Key of the Nile." It was the "symbol of symbols" among the Egyptians, the Phœnicians and the Chaldees, being the emblem of the _life to come_. It was placed on the breast of the deceased, sometimes as a simple [Symbol: T cross] on the fulcrum _of a cone_; sometimes represented as supported on a heart. It is also seen adorning the breasts of statues and statuettes in Palenque, Copan, and other ancient cities of Guatemala, Nicaragua, and various localities of Central America. Everywhere it was associated with _water_. In Babylon it was the emblem of _water deities_. In Egypt, Assyria, and Britain, it was emblematical of _creative power and eternity_. In India, China, and Scandinavia of _heaven and immortality_. In Mayax of _rejuvenescence and freedom from physical suffering_. The cross, as a symbol, was placed on the breast of the initiate after his new birth was accomplished in the Bacchic and Eleusinian mysteries. Remesal and Torquemada assert, in their respective works, that when in 1519, the Spaniards, under Hernan Cortez, landed at the island of Cozumel, they found crosses which the natives worshiped as gods in their temples. After them many writers, on their authority, have affirmed the same thing. This, however, seems to have been a mistake. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who accompanied Cortez, does not mention the existence of such symbols in Cozumel, but emphatically says that Cortez, having ordered the destruction of the idols that were in the sanctuaries, caused an image of the Virgin Mary to be placed in their stead, and near it a wooden cross, made by two of his carpenters, to be erected, recommending the natives to take great care of them when he left. Dr. Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, another of the early writers, maintains that the stone crosses found afterward in the island were made in imitation of that of Cortez; and Bishop Landa, although a most zealous missionary, intent on converting the aborigines to the Catholic faith, does not mention the existence of crosses in Cozumel before the advent of the Spaniards; a fact he would certainly have taken advantage of in his predication of the gospel, and would not have failed to mention in his work, had he been satisfied that the symbol really existed.