NO. 14 ARCHEOLOGY OF BAY ISLANDS, HONDURAS STRONG I29 



of a graceful cylindrical vase with three small, solid feet. There are 

 a numhcr of potsherds, both plain and incised. Two rather coarse 

 vertical strap handles have angular rather than rounded curves. There 

 are two detached lugs ; one of these is of the vertical, centrally con- 

 stricted type with elaborate punctate decoration, the other is a frag- 

 ment of applique decoration. There are five separate feet; one is 

 conical from a tall trii)od bowl, two are similar but shorter, one is a 

 solid cone, and the last is hemispherical and hollow with elaborate 

 incised punctate and api)lique decoration. The collection is not par- 

 ticularly distinctive but seems for the most part to represent the more 

 elaborate type of monochrome ware. 



THE PLAN GRANDE SITE 



The Plan Grande is the most striking ruin we visited in the 

 Bay Islands. It was briefly mentioned by Young, in 1842 (Young, 

 1842, p. 48) as a stone wall a few feet high containing fissures or 

 niches made for the admission of peculiarly cut, three-legged stone 

 chairs, presumably the seats of idols. Conzemius also gives a brief 

 description of the site, stating that it might possibly be of buccaneer 

 rather than Indian origin." The party of Mitchell-Hedges visited 

 the site in 1930, and he has published a diagram of the enclosure "" that 

 differs very considerably from the plane-table map made by Haskell 

 and myself (fig. 35). 



Mitchell-Hedges compares the site to Stonehenge, but believes it 

 to be incalculably older on the basis of the disintegration of the rock 

 slabs. He mentions the trench started in mound i (fig. 35), which 

 yielded broken pottery. His assistants, Mr. Stein and Mr. Hudson, 

 obtained six very fine ax heads, several figurines, a small stone altar, 

 broken decorated pottery, and fragments of large nictates with legs 

 from an earth mound, probably mound 4 (fig. 35). Their most spec- 

 tacular discovery, according to the newspaper account, was a hollowed 

 stone too heavy to move, which suggested a stone font."^ This may 

 have been the stone seat sketched by Bird (fig. 36). On the hills to the 

 east of the site (map, fig. 33) Mr. Stein and Mr. Hudson found a 

 large boulder with incised rectangular lines around a cross. All the 

 lines are double with regularly spaced cross lines, giving the design 



^' 1928, pp. 66, 67. There seems no reason to believe that the site is not of 

 native origin. 



^ Signed article by Mitchell-Hedges, The Washington Herald, Aug. 24, 1930. 



^'Idcm. The illustrations in this article show this stone, the carved rock, 

 and the diagram. 



