On i>in\E Ancient Sculptures from the Pacific Slope of Guatemala. 



By Gustav Eisen. 



During my visit to Guatemala, Honduras and Salvador, in 1882, I made the 

 archfoological remains of the Mayas and the Aztecs in tliose countries my particu- 

 lar study. These researches were embodied in a paper presented to the Smithso- 

 nian Institute in 1883. This paper treated principally of the ruins of Copan and 

 Quirigua, in Honduras and Guatemala. Through an unfortunate mishap a portion 

 of this paper was lost in transferring from the Smithsonian Institute to the 

 Bureau of Ethnology in Washington, I). C. Tliis delayed the printing of the 

 same four years. In the meantime Mr. Alfred Maudslay, of London, carried on 

 extensive excavations in both the above places. His researches being so much 

 more extensive than my own, and now soon to be published, will in a measure 

 supersede them, and make their publication less desirable or entirely superfluous. 



The following paper contains only those portions of my former researches 

 which refer to parts not visited by Mr. Maudslay. The historical traditions of 

 these localities are entirely lost, and instead of indulging in vague and at present 

 highly unsatisfactory speculations about possible relations, life, characteristics, etc., 

 of the people who produced the sculptures found there, I shall mainly confine 

 myself to describing what I have seen, leaving future explorers, with more 

 material, to generalize and speculate upon the, of late, rather fashionable myths of 

 Tlalocs, Quetzalcoatle, Toltecs, etc. ; but this much I will say in regard to the people 

 who originated these sculptures — that they were, undoubtedly, of Aztec origin; the 

 worn gylphs yet to be distinguished show similarity to Aztec and not to Maya 

 writings. 



EL PORTAL, PANTALEoN, LOS TARROS, SANTA RITA, SANTA LUCIA COTZUMALGUAPA AND 



AGUNA. 



In the above named places as well as in many others along the Paciiic Coast 

 of Guatemala, from the very slope of the volcanoes to the shores of the Pacific 

 Ocean, are found numerous traces of ancient civilization. So numerous seems the 

 population of the country to have once been that there is now scarcely a single 

 farm upon which is not fourid ruins or relics of some kind. But the monuments 



Mem. Vol. IJ. g. July. J88B. 



