A kiva or ceremonial chamber at Aztec in process of excavation. — The charred contents of this 

 chamber told of a grim catastrophe. At one side of the room lay a few calcined bones of an adult, 

 and against the opposite wall were clustered the carbonized bodies of four children. Bones and flesh 

 were reduced to slaglike masses of charcoal, rendered bluely iridescent by burning body fats ; cover- 

 ings of cloth and matting were fused to the flesh, retaining perfectly their original texture. Pottery 

 vessels, bone and stone implements, and ornaments of shell and turquoise were scattered about the 

 room, where last used or laid aside. Apparently the five individuals were overwhelmed and burned 

 alive together with most of their material possessions 



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A burial chamber in the east wing at Aztec — The bowl and vase appearing in the lower right 

 hand corner of the photograph were resting upon the breast of a skeleton covered from throat to 

 thighs with beads and pendants. To recover these last the earth was passed through screens. First 

 one with quarter inch meshes was tried, then one made of window screening. As many of the beads 

 were so small that they passed through even such fine meshes without difficulty, the earth was sacked 

 and taken to camp, where one patient assistant labored for seven days with a flour sieve and a mag- 

 nifying glass before the last of the beads was separated from the black dust. There were seventy feet 

 of them when strung — more than forty thousand in all 



605 



