HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



Among the objects unearthed during the excavations in the banks 

 of the river, none possesses greater interest than a group of vessels 

 made of a fine white marble and carved on the outside with a bold 

 design presenting highly distinctive features. 



Two vases of this kind were already known in public collections, 

 one in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and 

 one in the Musee du Trocadero in Paris; but the provenance of these 

 was unknown before the discoveries to which I have referred. 



Some of the sites in which the excavations were conducted are 

 near a native village called Santa Ana. It is an extensive site, and 

 the excavations, although carried to a great depth in order to uncover 

 the deep layers that contained the buried relics, were by no means 

 exhaustive. From time to time in succeeding years the annual floods, 

 undermining the banks, have brought to light various earthenware 

 vessels and carved stone objects similar to those obtained from the 

 excavations on the same site and which are now in the Peabody 

 Museum. Among the artifacts thus unearthed are examples of the 

 elaborately worked stone vases already mentioned, several of which 

 are now in the collections of the University Museum of Philadelphia. 

 One of them illustrates so well the characteristic properties of the 

 purely local art and industry of the Ulua valley that it may stand as 

 representative of the whole class, illustrating as it does the artistic 

 and symbolic attributes as well as the craftsmanship that belongs 

 peculiarly to this group of stone vases from the valley mentioned. 



The vase measures nine and three-quarter inches high and six 

 inches broad at the rim. On opposite sides the most striking feature 

 is presented in the form of a pair of projecting handles, which, carved 

 from the one piece of marble, stand out boldly from the circular con- 

 tour of the vessel. The design of these handles is quite extraordinary, 

 and its execution is no less remarkable. Each handle represents a pair 

 of animals of different kinds, the larger animal in each case, attached 

 dorsally to the body of the vase, forming the main feature of the 

 handle. The head, projecting horizontally, forms the upper part of 

 the handle. The smaller animal is held in the claws of the larger. The 

 position is so reversed that the head forms the lower termination of 

 the handle. The ventral surfaces of the two animals, being brought 

 into close contact, are not sharply defined in the carving of details. 

 The dorsal part of the smaller animal however is carved in detail, 

 with a serrated line which extends from the head to the end of the 

 tail. The head of this smaller animal is turned sideways so as to face 

 to the left in each case. 



The animals represented in these two remarkable groups present 



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