ANCIENT SEATING FURNITURE — HOUGH 513 



These scats are found in a limited area, where they occur in consid- 

 able numbers. They consist of a base, a support carved in animal 

 or human form, and a U-shapod seat without back. Undoubtedly 

 these seats are of ceremonial character and formed part of the cult 

 objects in the flimsily constrnclc.l hill temples which have now dis- 

 appeared.* 



In ancient Peru, according to Wiener,^" movable seats were not 

 used, and the various great works cut from the solid rock called 

 seats have not been explained by archeologists. They have no char- 

 acteristics of seats. 



If the Mayas had simple seats of stone or wood, none has sur- 

 vived to be noted by explorers. Maya sculpture, however, preserves 

 some remarkable examjiles of thrones. One of these is shown with 

 a seated figure from the hieroglyphic stairway at Copan.^^ The 

 figure is seated on the skin of a jaguar u})on an oblong stool, the 

 carved part of which evidently represents woodwork. At one end of 

 the stool is seen the head of a captive, a motive appearing often in 

 Maya ai-t in which gods are represented as seated on bound victims. 

 The stucco altar piece of a small temple at Palenque shows a 

 throne seat of massive design of jaguar heads and paws, the former 

 being the arms and the latter the feet of this piece. Between the 

 jaguar heads, on an elaborately worked cushion like a hassock, sits 

 a Maya god with right leg horizontal on the cushion and with out- 

 wardly flexed arms, in a graceful pose. This masterpiece of Ameri- 

 can aboriginal art is called the Beau Relief.^- The original has 

 disappeared through ravages of time, but the drawing made by 

 Waldeck fortunately preserves this marvel of design and modeling, 

 the climax of aboriginal art in the Western Hemisphere. Doctor 

 Holmes, on his visit to Yucatan in 1894, saw enough of the remains 

 of this superb work of art to guarantee the accuracy of the artist 

 Waldeck's drawing. The Asiatic characteristics of this work are 

 noteworthy, but there is no ground for its attribution to any other 

 source than American. So far as known the pose of the being 

 represented is not duplicated in Maya art. The cushion is also 

 unique. (PI. 6.) 



Corresponding to those of America, simple stools are found among 

 the tribes of lower culture in Africa and Asia. So far as may be 

 ascertained, the use of stools is quite general in Africa, but the 

 distribution has not yet been worked out. From the Somali of 

 Berbera on the Gulf of Aden comes a round dish-top, 4-legged stool 



•A 4-leK curved stool remlnlscpnt of the West Indian type recovered from tlie muck at 

 Key Mareo, Fla., was fleured by Frank Hamilton CushlnK. Proc. Amer. Phllos. Soc., 

 vol. .*?.5, No. 153. pi. 34, flg. 7, Nov. 6, 1806. 



"Op. cit.. p. 520. 



"Cordon, O. B. Mem. Teabody Mug. Amor. Arrh. & Fthnol., vol. 1, No. C, p. 12. 

 Cambrldpe, Mass.. 1002. 



" IIolmcB, W. U. Art and Archaeologr, vol. 1, No. 1, p. 1. Wasbington, July, 1904. 



