670 MOUNDS IN NORTHERN HONDURAS [ETH. ANN. 19 
The faces, arms, legs, and other parts of exposed naked skin are 
usually red or yellow. The figures themselves, together with all the 
elaborate details of their dress and ornament, are outlined in fine black 
lines. When first discovered the colors were very brilliant, but after 
exposure to the light for a day or two, a great deal of their luster was 
lost, and it became necessary, as each figure was uncovered, to roof it 
in with palm leaves in order to protect it from the sun and rain. The 
figures were exposed one at a time; otherwise, by the time two or 
three had been copied, the rest would have faded so that it would have 
been impossible to copy the original colors. A sheet of tracing cloth, 
suflicient to cover the whole figure, was then tacked over it and an 
accurate tracing obtained, which was afterward transferred to draw- 
ing paper. Any mistake that might have been made in the outline 
of the figure or its ornaments were then rectified. Finally, the colors 
were applied exactly as they occurred in the original. By the time 
the whole had been copied, the earlier exposed figures were much 
defaced from the action of the weather, and as there was no way of 
preserving the wall, 1 removed the stueco on which two of the most 
perfect of the remaining figures were painted. This, owing to the 
soft layer at the back of the stucco, already referred to, was readily 
accomplished. 
HISTORICAL DATA GAINED BY STUDY OF MOUND 1 
Three interesting questions present themselves with reference to 
these painted walls: 
1. By whom was the building erected and the walls painted 4 
2. By whom, and why, was the building destroyed, and the mound 
erected around it? 
3. When did these events, severally, occur? 
Tue Bumpers oF THE MOUND-COVERED TEMPLE 
In answering the first of these questions, the hieroglyphies which 
still remain will, I think, materially assist us. The large sheet of 
hieroglyphies on the east wall has, as I have already explained, been 
permanently lost; but scattered over the rest of the painting are no 
less than 21 complete glyphs. These are unquestionably of Maya or 
Toltec origin. The sign of the 20th day—named Ahau—of the Maya 

month, occurs no less than nine times in the course of the painting, 
namely, beside figures 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8 of plate xxrx, figures 5, 7, and 
8 of plate xxx, and figures 1 and 3 of plate xxx1; and possibly as a 
component part of the glyph opposite the face of figure 2, plate xxrx, 
and also of that placed above figure 6, plate xxrx. It will be observed 
that these symbols differ very slightly one from another and that all 
of them resemble very closely those given by Landa, and those of the 
