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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



These are the cultivated regions of the Vera Paz, open to Christian 

 civilization and populated to this day to some extent. Here we find in 

 the west, in the valley of the Chixoy, the ruins of Salinas de los Nueve 

 Cerros and those of Chania. Doctor Sapper is inclined to ascribe both 

 these to the Chols, without of course expressing more than a supposi- 

 tion on this question. 



From the former place, where, according to Doctor Sapper's state- 

 ment, a pretty sculpture, with some hieroglyphs, was found in a mound 

 having well-preserved burial chambers, the Sapper collection contains 

 two grinding slabs, two stone rings, a pottery vessel, and three pottery 

 plates. The grinding slabs are of natural gneiss or mica schist of slight 

 thickness (maximum, 3 cm.). The larger of the two has a rubbing sur- 

 face of 52 by 35 cm. Of the two stone rings, the inner diameter of the 



c d e f 



Fig. is. Pottery vessels and other articles from a Guatemalan mound. 



larger is from 4 to 5 cm., and the ring is 5^ cm. broad and 5 cm. thick; 

 the other has an inner diameter of 2|^ to 3^ cm.; the breadth of the 

 ring is 3 cm., and the thickness somewhat over 3 cm. The larger one 

 is smooth on the upper and lower surfaces and rough on the circumfer- 

 ence. Both were perhaps used in a game resembling the chunky game 

 of the Indians of the southern United States. The pottery vessel 

 (a, figure 15) has a height of 15 cm. , and the diameter at the mouth is 13 

 cm. It was well baked and carefully smoothed, and then received a 

 red coating, upon which was traced a network of black lines; but the 

 coating is rubbed off in many places. The plates (J, figure 15) have a 

 diameter of 22 to 25 cm, and a height of about 6 cm. They are also of 

 well-baked clay, rough on the outside and furnished with a light-red 

 coating on the inside. 



