24 



RUINS NEAR YAXCHE. 



northern hill, and with some difficulty were able to trace the walls of a building which 

 must have closely resembled its companion facing it on the opposite side of the valley. 

 On the broken floor of the chamber we discovered portions of three earthen pots and 

 some fragments of a good-sized stucco figure. We were able to piece together two 

 fragments of a well-modelled face, which must have been about ten inches in breadth, 

 and to ascertain that the eyes had been made of obsidian. 



Almost all round the ruined town there are numberless limestone hills between 

 fifty and three hundred feet in height, and at the top 

 of nearly every one of them are foundation-mounds 

 or tumuli. In some cases these foundations are 

 merely outlined in rough stones, in others they 

 are flat oblong mounds, which may have supported 

 buildings of a perishable material. A common 

 arrangement of the remains on these hilltops is given 

 in the accompanying sketch. I opened one set thus 

 arranged. The mound A had probably supported a 

 small " cue " or shrine ; a terrace ran in front of it, 

 which was reached by a short flight of steps. The 

 total height of the mound was about sixteen feet, 

 and the level space on the top of it did not measure 

 more than six feet by four. We dug a trench right 

 through this mound, and found traces of interments 

 and broken pottery within a few feet of the top, and 

 below this nothing but a mass of rough stones 

 and earth. B, C, and D may have been the 

 foundations of small houses, but they also served as 

 places of sepulture, as we found in them traces of 

 bones and broken pottery. The four smaller mounds 

 were tombs only. The vessels buried with the 

 bodies appear to have consisted of a flat dish and a 



round pot. The body was probably seated with its knees doubled up, for we found 

 the fragments of bones all close together, and portions of the skull in the midst of 

 them. In one instance the skull, or rather the earthen impression of it, was actually 

 resting in the dish and the bones lying around it, as though the body had been seated 

 in the dish, and as the skeleton had decayed the skull had sunk down through them. 

 We found three or four chipped stone lance-heads, a good deal of unworked flint, but 

 only two obsidian flakes. There were also a few pieces of mealing-stones and a 

 considerable number of potsherds showing traces of yellow and black and red 

 colouring. A little trickling stream at the foot of the hills had evidently formed 

 part of the water-supply of the ancient inhabitants, for it was enclosed by a wall 

 forming an irregular oval about twenty-five by forty feet. On the level ground 



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