SPINDLE-WHORLS. 



163 



had seen service in some capacity. The seat of one rather tall stool of crude 

 workmanship is supported on the heads of four caryatids, whose arms are disposed 

 after the fashion of the " Panama Venus " (see fig. 40). The seat of the smallest 

 clay stool in the collection rests on the uplifted heads and tails of four animal figures. 

 The largest and in many respects the finest piece of this kind is reproduced 

 in figure 259. It measures 30 centimeters across the top and is 17 centimeters high. 

 There are but three legs alternating with strange half-human forms that stand on 

 the connecting ring below and help to support the concave seat above. Except 

 for the loin-cloth and absence of tail, there is little to suggest the human 

 figure. Here again the arms are fashioned as if of hammered gold. The bodies 

 are hollow, slit down the back and each carries a clay ball. The grotesque head 



Fig. 259. Large fine clay stool, the seat supported by three legs alternating with 

 strange half-human forms. Armadillo ware. */" 



is not human. It may be that of an ape or an alligator, the horizontal flattening 

 of the jaws suggesting the latter. In some respects, the entire figure is analogous 

 to certain gold figurines of the alligator-god. There are nineteen additional small 

 heads surrounding the rim. The seat is concave and highly polished for ware 

 of this kind. 



SPINDLE-WHORLS AND STAMPS. 



The spindle-whorl is one of those links that bind the archeology of region to 

 region and of age to age. The weaver's art seems to have developed in widely 

 separated parts of the world and in some places earlier than in others. Spindle- 

 whorls were found by Schliemann at Troy, by Keller in the Swiss lake-dwellings, 

 and by many archeologists in various parts of Europe and America. There is often 

 a striking similarity between those found in regions remote from each other; as, 

 for example, Troy and Mexico. The collection of spindle-whorls from Chiriqui 



