OANxl MAYA INDIANS OF YUCATAN AND BRITISH HONDURAS 73 



built liad hoon ^vasl^(Ml down and miiiglod \vith the suiToimding soil 

 to so great an extent that it was almost impossible to d(^termine where 

 one began and the other ended. This mound or ridge has not as 

 yet been complett^ly explored, but in the part which has already been 

 dug down two interments were found. The first was quite super- 

 ficial, about 1 foot below the surface, near the eastern extremity of 

 the ridge. The bones were those of a well-developed male, of rather 

 unusual height and muscular development for a Maya Iiidian; they 

 were in an exceptionally good state of preservation, tliough not pro- 

 tected from the surrounding earth by cist or burial chamber. Un- 

 fortunately, the skull was smashed into small fragments by a careless 

 blow of the pickax before it was realized that a burial existed at the 

 spot. The body appeared to have been buried lying upon the right side, 

 with the legs flexed at the knees and thighs. From one of the incisor 

 teeth a quadranglar piece had been cleanly removed (fig. 21, g). 

 Unfortunately, the tooth in contact with it on the other side could not 

 be found, so that it was impossible to ascertain whether a correspond- 

 ing piece had been removed from this also. The tooth was much 

 worn at the cutting edge. Landa describes a grinding down of the 

 teeth to a sawUke edge, for ornamental purposes, practiced by the 

 Yucatecans at the time of the conquest,^ and it seems probable that 

 this tooth was operated on for a similar purpose. 



With the bones were found: (a) An oblong piece of marble-like 

 stone, 2 inches long, 1| inches broad, and 1 inch deep, polished on 

 all its surfaces, probably used for smoothing or burnishing; (b) what 

 appeared to be a piece broken from a rubbing stone which had been 

 squared, and which showed marks on its upper sm-face indicating 

 that it had been used for giving an edge to stone implements; (c) 

 fragments of rough unpainted pottery. 



The second interment was that of a child 8 to 10 years of age. 

 The site of this burial was withm a few feet of the first, at a depth 

 of about a foot below the surface. The bones, which were m a fair 

 state of preservation, were in contact with the earth of which the 

 mound was built. The corpse appeared to have been laid on the 

 side, with the legs drawn up. With the bones were found only a 

 few ornaments broken from pottery incense burners, as ear plugs, 

 small animal heads, and part of a quilted breastplate. 



This mound was probably of a much later date than the other 

 mounds described at Santa Rita. It is merely an nregular ridge 

 built of earth and stones, while the earlier mounds just referred to 

 are well defmed and constructed of blocks of limestone with rubble, 

 limestone dust, and mortar filling in the interstices. The bones, 



1 "Tenian por costumbre accrrar.se los dientcs dexandolos como diente de sierra y esto tenian por galan- 

 teria, y hazian esle olBcio viejas, limandolos eon ciertas piedras y agua." — Landa, op. cit., p. 1S2. Simi- 

 larly filed teeth have been discovered at Copan and in caves at Loltun. See Joyce, Mexican Archaeology, 

 p. 294. 



