COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 57 



DEPARTMENT OF SPAIN. 

 THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 



The National Museum of Archaeology of Spain is an institution of 

 the highest class, and one most creditable to the scientific spirit of the 

 nation. Jt is installed in Madrid in extensive and beautiful grounds 

 and contains a vast collection of objects most useful to a student of 

 antiquarian scenes. Only a comparatively small portion of these treas 

 ures were exhibited in the Columbian Exposition, but the selection was 

 very judicious and furnished the attentive observer a large mass of 

 material for his consideration. 



The National Museum of Archeology owes its foundation to the 

 liberal mind of Charles III of Spain, who about the year 1 773 collected 

 together the objects of interest in natural history and antiquities, and 

 with them formed a large collection at the capital. He also sent various 

 scientific men of the day on voyages to America for the purpose of 

 adding to this material for students. Later on it was increased by the 

 efforts of officers attached to the Spanish navy, by a private collection 

 of ancient vases from Peru, and by a large number of objects exhumed 

 from the sepulchers of that country, including remains, textile materials 

 and utensils of all kinds, and also by a collection of antiquities for 

 warded by the Government of Guatemala in 1789, and from other 

 sources. 



The materials on exhibition were disposed, in the main, geographi 

 cally, and are so classified in the published catalogue. Beginning with 

 the West Indian Islands, we find a number of examples of the fetiches 

 or so-called zemis^ which are so common through Cuba, Puerto Eico, 

 and other islands of that archipelago. These are sometimes in stone, 

 sometimes in baked clay. They usually represent rudely the human 

 figure in part or in whole, or a figure of some of the lower animals. 

 Besides these, from the same locality there were stone axes in diorite 

 or serpentine, stones used for milling purposes, often of the peculiar 

 triangular shape known as &quot;the cocked-hat stone,&quot; 2 collars of stone 

 principally diorite, stone implements of the same material, rudely shaped 

 idols arid arrow points, one of which, from Cuba, was of obsidian. 



Quite a number of arrowheads, a few objects in bone and stone, and 

 fragments of pottery were from the United States, their exact locality 

 not being stated. 



Of greater value than these are the extensive series from Mexico, 

 these unfortunately also being rarely strictly localized, and there 

 fore difficult to be referred to a particular ethnic civilization. They 

 included a large collection of what were called religious objects, such 



Allied to to the Arawack, semeti, medicine-man, sorcerer, or priest. 

 2 On the purpose of these consult E. F. im Thurn, &quot;On West Indian Stone Imple 

 ments&quot; in the Journal Timehri, Vol. I, Part II. 



