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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[ KULL. 64 



Fig 76— Head cut from lunebtone found in 

 Mound No. 32. 



at one time. The two life-size hum an heads shown in figures 76 and 77 

 were found close to these two mounds in digging a posthole. Fig- 

 ure 76 represents a grotesque head cut from a sohd block of crystal- 

 line hmestone. Figure 77 is a mask, 

 rather crudely cut from greenstone and 

 unpolished. Both were buried in the 

 marl and were unaccompanied by other 

 objects. 



Mound No. 33 



Mound No. 33 was situated near 

 Bacalar, in the Province of Quintana 

 Roo, Mexico. It was 6 feet in height 

 by 20 feet in diameter, and was built 

 of blocks of limestone, limestone dust, 

 and earth. Near the summit of this 

 momid, close to the surface, was fomid 

 the small soapstone lamp illustrated 

 in figure 78, 4f inches in length,by If 

 inches in depth. The lamp is deco- 

 rated in front with a floral design, 

 and at the back by wing or feather-hke ornaments, possibly meant 

 to represent the tail and half -folded wmgs of a bird. It is fuiely 

 polished throughout but had probably never been used, as in hol- 

 lowing out the interior the maker had carried one of his strokes too 

 close to the surface, making a small hole, which would have allowed 

 the oil to escape. There is a 

 freedom and lack of convention- 

 ality, both in the pleasmg and 

 natural floral design and in the 

 flowing lines of the back part of 

 this little lamp, which are to- 

 tally unhke the cramped and 

 highly conventional style to be 

 observed in similar small objects 

 of ancient Maya manufacture. 

 So widely does it differ from 

 Maya standards that there 

 can be but little doubt that it 

 was introduced in post-Colum- 

 bian days, probably very soon 

 after the conquest, especially as in the same moimd was fomid one 

 of the small painted clay figurines so common in momids in this 

 neighborhood, which with the censers probably belonged to the 



Fig. 77.— Greenstone mask found in Mound No. 32. 



