THE GRAVES. 39 



Cave 38. 



At the south end of the great bowlder covering Cave 37 was a small shallow niche. 

 Here we found a decayed and fragmentary adult female skeleton (Ost. Coll. 3189), a 

 bronze knife (M. P. 758) and three pins (M. P. 759, 760, 761) of the form used for 

 fastening the women's mantles. Photographs of the knife and pins are reproduced on Plate 

 II. A peculiarity of this cave was that the height under the covering rock was so scant that 

 it could not receive a mummy sitting in the contracted position. 



Grave 39. 



Elsewhere in this report a stone-lined grave in the Sacred Plaza is mentioned. Unfor- 

 tunately, our party was apparently not the first to search it for booty of one kind or another. 

 For this reason I was especially pleased when, on clearing away the vegetation beneath 

 the bowlder shown in text-figure 35, we came upon the covering stones of a bottle-shaped 

 grave that had been neatly lined with four courses of stonework. The general character 

 of the work can be seen in text-figure 36. 



It is astonishing how skeletal parts will retain their relative position if undisturbed in a 

 grave of this description, where a little earth is placed about the mummy or allowed to sift 

 in through the interstices of the lining, and where the innumerable small roots and fibers of 

 tropical vegetation replace the mouldering softer human tissues. Beneath the skull (Ost. 

 Coll. 3190) lay the mandible still in a state of fair preservation, but as the excavation 

 continued downward the bones were found to be more and more decayed. This individual 

 was probably female. Beneath the lower jaw were four oblong pieces of stone, an inch in 

 length, pierced at one end, their position and form indicating that they were originally 

 strung as neck-pendants. The dark soil went down a little more than half the depth of 

 the grave; below this level the fine reddish earth of the mountainside had been filled in 

 around the contracted remains. On the surface of the ground in front of the grave lay a 

 number of potsherds. It is interesting to record that several pieces of a deep two-handled 

 dish (M. P. 937) were found at a depth of one foot, in the ground behind the grave, the 

 rest of the vessel being on the surface in front. In all probability, this vessel was part 

 of the garniture of an earlier burial under the sheltering bowlder, and a broken portion of 

 it was covered at the back of the shelter or cave when the grave excavated by our party 

 was dug. This again is evidence that burials were made at different periods in the caves 

 of the Machu Picchu Mountain. Another vessel, restored from eighty-one sherds since the 

 return of the Expedition, is a very large dai'k-brown fire-blackened beaker-shaped olla 

 (M. P. 1077). 



Graves 40, 41, 42 and 43. 



Under a great overhanging flat bowlder of the lower cave region, the remains of several 

 individuals were found in locations to which for convenience of reference these four numbers 

 have been assigned. As will be seen in text-figures 37 and 38, these locations should perhaps 

 be regarded as one grave. I am also inclined to think that the bones of some of the 

 individual skeletons had been slightly misplaced or mixed by previous visitors. 



