FEWKES] 



COLLECTIONS MADE IN 1897 



185 



was said to have been taken out of tlie ruins near Solomonville. Tliis 

 was one of the finest paint mortars whicli he ever saw from tlie 

 Southwest. 



One of the most exceptional of stone objects from the Pueblo Viejo 

 ruins is sliown in the annexed out (figure 115). It has a regular 

 disk form, and is carefully worked from a lava stone. The form 

 is that of a paint mortar. 



STONE SLABS 



Early in the author's stiulies in the Pueblo Viejo, his attention was 

 called to a stone slab sliaped like the sole of a shoe (fiLjure IIG), to 

 which it was compared by the Mexican who owned it. This object 



Fig. 116. Ceremonial stone slab from Pueblo Viejo i number 1T7.575). 



was flat or slightly convex on one face, flat on the opposite, and liad a 

 shallow groove on the margin. The border on the flat side was orn.^- 

 mented with a number of parallel scratches arranged in clusters. 



Later the author obtained other stones of the same .shape and of 

 about the same size; one of the most instructive was a specimen of 

 irregularly rectangular form, with a bird's head carved on one edge, 

 and the tail on the other (figure 117). 



There is an interesting modificalion of the same class of objects 

 in the collections of the National Museum — a circular stone slab of 

 which the body of a snake, with head and tail skillfully carved, forms 

 the margin. These objects, which are not rare in the ruins of the 

 Gila and Salt river valleys, are called ceremonial slal)S, and were 

 probably used in much the same way as are the stone slabs orna- 



