Desire Charnay, Augustus Le Plongeon, Teoberto Maler, Alfred Maudslay, Eduard Seler, and Edward H. Thompson, although only Le Plongeon and Thompson had conducted any significant excavation, and their efforts would pale in comparison to the Carnegie project. Major finds In 1924, armed with a renewable ten-year digging concession from the Mexican government, Morley, his field director Earl H. Morris, artists Ann Axtell 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 the columns number fewer than one thousand), 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 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