THE SCULPTURES OF SANTA LUCIA COZUMAHU VLl^V 

 GUATEMALA, IN THE HAMBURG ETHNOLOGICAL 

 MUSEUM/ 



By Herman Strebel. 



The scientific committee of the Hamlmrg-Americu celcl)nition, 

 planiK^d for 1892, had -intended to hold an exhi})ition, and Director 

 Bolau, Mr. L. Friedrich.sen, Superintendent C. W. Liiders, Dr. 

 Michau, and the author of the present paper were associated into 

 a subcommittee for that purpose. As everybody knows, the cholci-a 

 broke out and rendered this promising partof the proo-i-annnc iini)i'ac- 

 ticable. It thus became necessary to make some other disposition of 

 so much of the material collected as had been either donated or ])ur- 

 chased. It had all along been intended that our scientific institute 

 should profit by such things, and so it happened, owing to the excellent 

 financial management of the whole undertaking by the general connnit- 

 tee, that our ethnological museum received the gift of a series of 

 plaster casts whose originals are preserved in the Royal Ethnological 

 Museum of Berlin. 



Those originals came from Santa Lucia Cozuniahuali^a. which is a 

 place in the province of Escuintla, in Guatemala, on the southern or 

 Pacific slope of the Cordilleras, below the Volcano del Fuego. The 

 locality seems to have been settled after 1850 by Cakchi(|ue]s from the 

 high plateau, who commenced cofl'ee plantations here. In I8(i<i the 

 clearing of a piece of forest brought to light a number of sculptured 

 blocks of stone. The commandant of the place, Mr. Pedro de Anda, 

 considered the discovery of suflicient importance to be })rought to the 

 notice of the Guatemalan Government, and a commission of inspection 

 was dispatched to the spot. Unfortunately, their thorough repoi-t was 

 never published, and has since not been found in the archi\-es. Two 

 years later, in 1862, the Austrian traveler, Dr. Habel. in the course of 

 "his extended explorations, arrived at Santa Lucia, and made drawings 

 and descriptions of the anticiuities that had been found up to that date. 

 These were first published at the instance of Prof. Ad. liastian. 

 director of the Royal Ethnological Museum of Berlin, in Vol. XXII ot 

 the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge , in isT s. Bastian had 



» Translated from the Annual of the Hamburg Scientific Institute, Vol. XI, 1893. 



