^VA.ER] ANTTQUITTES OF GUATEMALA 87 



Farther up in the vaiiey of the Chixoy, where the 8alba empties on 

 the right, lie the ruins of Chama, where the excavations of Mr Die- 

 seldorff have yielded such fine results. According to the infcn-mation 

 which he has given about them in the Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, 

 there were on the left, as well as on the right, hank of the Salba 

 several plazas (courts or squares inclosed by walls), above which 

 rise artificial mounds of the familiar truncated pyramidal form. In 

 the pyramid on the north side of the plaza, distinguished by him as 

 the ''lower" one, which, if 1 understand riglitly, is on the left bank 

 of the Salba, he found, among a layer of potsherds nearly two feet in 

 thickness, a dark resinous mass in which were embedded diti'erent 

 specimens of stone, small polyhedric slabs of iron pyrites, and disks 

 of a sort of slate. The small disks of iron pyrites, which Diescldorff 

 would prefer to explain as mirrors, probabh^ served as mosaic incrus- 

 tations of utensils or ornaments (ear pegs or similar articles). Th(» 

 stone disks which Dieseldortf designated as sacrificial plates are pro- 

 vided with holes and connecting grooves which doul)tless represent 

 g-uides for cords. « They are, perhaps, ornamental disks like the large 

 disks which we find in Mexican picture writings on the fillets worn on 

 the forehead by difierent deities, especially by the sun god (see below, 

 h, figure 28), and in a similar manner on difierent stone heads of Copan.'' 

 He found under this resinous layer a graA'e formed of stones, in 

 which, near the dead, who were buried in a sitting posture, were found 

 a jaguar's skull, a ring made of a mussel shell, and five potter}' ves- 

 sels — one painted jug-, two cup-like painted vessels, an unpainted pot, 

 and a three-footed bowl.'" 



Mr Dieseldorff found similar conditions in the northwest mound of 

 the upper plaza, on the left bank of the Salba. He could not per- 

 sonally complete the excavations, but others excavated after him, and 

 various painted vessels were found near the dead. A very inter- 

 esting drawing of one of them Mr Dieseldorfi sent to the Berlin 

 Anthropological Society.-' Lastly, Mr Dieseldorfi' found, in a i)y ramid 

 which forms the southern end of a plaza on the right bank of the 

 river Salba, under a layer of stone, a quantity of vessels of \arioiis 

 shapes embedded in a viscous clay. ))ut all of them were shattered by 

 the fall of the stone layer.'' ''Mingled with the vessels were found the 

 remains of various human skek>tons, whose recumbent posture, with 

 the head toward the south, was still clearly recogniza])le. N'arious 

 stone specimens and a small polyhedral slab of iron pyrites were found 



a See the photographs in Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, 1893, v. 25, p. 377. 



bMaudslay, Biologia Centrali Americana, Archseology, pt. 1, pi. ii. 



c Of these the painted jug is reproduced in Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, v. 2."i, ]«93, y>. 37s, and one of 

 the painted jug.s, same volume, pi. xvi, fig. 1. 



d Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, 1894, v. 26, pi. viii. 



e Three of these are reproduced in the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, a vessel with the god in the snail 

 shell, V. 25, 1893, pi. XVI, figs. 3, 4, and two others with the figure of the but god, in the .same volume, 

 p. 374, and v. 26, 1894, pi. Xiii. 



