159 



ON SOME ANCIENT REMAINS AT GUATEMALA. 



By a. L. lewis, F.C.A., Treasurer Anthropological Institute. 



Since I wrote the paper on Rude Stone Monuments on 

 Bodmin Moor, which, the Eoyal Institution of Cornwall did me 

 the honour of printing in the last number of its Journal, I have 

 found a description of some remains in Guatemala, which seem 

 to have a considerable resemblance to "King Arthur's Hall." 

 This description is given by the Hon. G. Williamson, U.S. 

 Minister to Central America, and appears in the Eeport of the 

 Smithsonian Institute for 1876. 



Of one enclosure he says: "It is a quadrilateral, of four 

 unequal sides, which appears to have been enclosed by an 

 earthen wall or embankment about ten or twelve feet high ; the 

 longer sides run from north to south and are 150 feet in length, 

 the shorter sides run from east to west and are ninety feet long. 

 On the west side, in a direct line with the shorter sides, are four 



small mounds probably twenty feet high After deciding 



that the embankments had not been a Spanish or Indian 



fortification I decided to open the mound nearest the 



north-west corner, it was cut down to the level of the surrounding 

 ground by cross ditches from north to south and east to west, 

 nothing was found but the head of a small stone idol, the edge 

 part of a greenish stone hatchet, and a great quantity of broken 

 pieces of obsidian and pottery." 



A second enclosure, shaped liked the first, was found in the 

 same field, it was 120 by 60 feet, and had mounds (much 

 smaller), on the east side instead of on the west. These 

 enclosures were in a coffee plantation near the City of Guatemala ; 

 but about three miles east from them Mr. Williamson found a 

 third and much larger one, near which were some mounds and 

 lines of stones, and of these I send a plan, traced from that 

 given in the Smithsonian Report. This third enclosure had four 

 mounds outside the north-west corner, like the first, and a single 

 six-sided stone standing at the centre of the north end. (At 

 point G, on plan). 



