ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN NICARAGUA. 



occasionally have dots in the centre, which seem to have been daubed in wherever 

 the painter thought that more color was desirable. 



The figures at b, Fig. 45, are probably the most curious found on this pot- 

 tery, and have more the appearance of hieroglyphs. But the regularity of their 

 arrangement and their frequent and symmetrical repetition on the same vessel, 

 indicate that they were used here as ornaments. They may have been taken 

 from the hieroglyphic system of another people, and adopted as ornamental in 

 the same way that single letters of our alphabet are now often seen on stone- 

 ware. This figure occurs in ten specimens. In No. 22,356, Fig. 45, the black 

 boundai'y lines of the panel b are shaded with red, and so are the central figures. 

 In addition to those in the panels inside and out, the peculiar forms occur also in 

 the bottom of the bowl, as shown at c, Fig. 45. These forms are found in nine 

 pieces of the collection. Among the best examples are those to be seen on No. 



Fig. 49. 



No. 28,817. Inside of bowl of Luna terrn-potta. 



28,817, a pretty bowl from Chilaite. In the bottom of this specimen the four 

 pairs are arranged with feet in the centre in a sort of rosette. On the inside of 

 the vessel is a band around the bottom, in which the simpler fret occurs seven 

 times, while outside the conventional modification of the same is seen repeated 



Fig. 50. 



No. 290. 



Fig. 52. 



Fig. 53. 



No. 22,374. 



No. 22,375. 



