418 ANTIQUITIES IN GUATEMALA. 



natural objects in a servile manner and do not possess any sense of the 

 beautiful. These severe criticisms might appear exaggerated if in his 

 Asiatic miscellanies M. Abel Kemusat had not pronounced the same 

 judgment. According to him, ia fact, the sculpture which the Chinese 

 bestow on objects of small dimension is only conspicuous for an extreme 

 finish, and fails entirely in the direction of elegance or correctness of 

 form. He adds : " They are faithful and minute copyists, but their taste 

 is often fantastic, vicious, and far-fetched." 



ANTIQUITIES IN GUATEMALA. 



By Hox. Geo. Williamson, 

 United Stales Minister to Central America. 



The locality examined, which I took to be the remains of a place of wor- 

 ship, was in the coffee-plantation of the haciendaof Don Pedro Aycineua, 

 near the city of Guatemala, and has been cultivated for nearly fifty years. 

 It is a quadrilateral of four unequal sides, which appears to have been in- 

 closed by an earthen wall or embankment about 10 or 12 feet high. The 

 longer sides run from north to south and are 150 feet in length ; the 

 shorter sides run from east to west and are 90 feet long. On the west 

 side, in a direct line with the shorter sides, are four small mounds prob- 

 ably 20 feet high. The one nearest the northwest corner is the one I 

 caused to be opened. In the north end of what I shall designate for 

 convenience No. 1, was found, many years ago, a piece of wrought stone 

 somewhat in the shape of a crocodile's head. It is now in the possession 

 of the owner of the hacienda of Naranjo, Don Pedro de Aycinena. 



After deciding that the embankments had not been a Spanish or 

 Indian fortification, and after taking the advice of my companion, the 

 Duke de Licignano, I decided to open the mound nearest the northwest 

 corner. It was cut down to the level of the surrounding ground by 

 cross ditches from north to south and east to west. Nothing was 

 found but the head of a small stone idol, the edge part of a greenish 

 stone hatchet, and a great quantity of broken pieces of obsidian and 

 pottery. It was impossible to reconstruct any vessel of the pottery, but 

 judging from the thickness of many of the pieces and from the large 

 size of solid cylindrical parts that appeared to have been handles, it 

 occurred to me this pottery might have been burial vessels like those 

 sent to the Institution from Nicaragua last year by Dr. 0. H. Berendt. 



The earth which composed the mounds and embankment seemed to 

 be like that of the surrounding surface, but after carefully searching 

 around within a considerable radius from the center of No. 1, 1 could 

 not discern any place from which the earth appeared to have been 

 excavated. 



The next place I examined, No. 2, is in the same field, and exactly in 



