THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



SOUTHWEST WING 



Ancient Monuments of Mexico and Central America 



1/ every step some palace meets the eye, 

 Some figure frowns; some temple courts the sky." 



Southey. 



Here is contained an exposition of the most ancient 

 monuments of Mexico and Central America. The repro- 

 ductions are chiefly from sculptures of Maya and Nahua 

 Indians made before Columbus reached America. 1 ' 1 



On the left is an exhaustive series of pottery, jade and 

 stone work, mostly from Costa Rica, deposited in the Mu- 

 seum by Minor C. Keith. This collection is supplemented 

 by more than 500 gold specimens which have been placed 

 in cases in the center of the hall. All of them are of pre- 

 Spanish times and were made when many ornaments were 

 worn by the Indians. They include beads, pins, nose and 

 arm trinkets and a large number of golden bells in the 

 form of monkeys, jaguars, birds, butterflies, frogs and liz- 

 ards. Singularly, vegetative motives are almost entirely 

 lacking. Accompanying the gold objects are ornaments of 

 polished jade, the designs upon which are highly conven- 

 tionalized figures of birds and animals; also of interest are 

 a few original molds made of rosin, which when used in 

 the process of manufacture were encased in clay, the pitch 



13 Hand book in press. 



59 



