Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1912. 
VOL. LXX1X.—No. 11. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
Through Unexplored Guerrero 
By PROF. WILLIAM NIVEN 
Chapter VI.—The Tablets of Life and Death 
I COME now to the strangest of all my dis¬ 
coveries in the mystery-laden land of Guer¬ 
rero—a find which may prove to be the 
Rosetta Stone of all Mexican archaeology, yet 
which has been deciphered only to a limited de¬ 
gree, though many archaeologists and ethnolo¬ 
gists of note, both from the United States and 
Europe, have devoted much time to it. 
This find consists of two tablets, found in 
the grave of one who was once evidently an 
emperor or cacique among the strange tribe which 
constructed the city in which they were found. 
Their discovery, made no later than 1910, came 
about in this manner: 
The country in which they were found is 
a section of Guerrero seldom visited by white 
men, even miners, and still less often by those 
who have any knowledge of archaeology or eth¬ 
nology. It lies about 300 miles southwest of 
Mexico City, in the district of Mina, and com¬ 
prises the greater portion of the municipality of 
Coyuca de Catalan. Here, along the shores of 
the Balsas River, lies a section fifty square miles 
in extent, which is literally covered with ruined 
dwellings, temples, pyramids and other remains 
of a vast race, whose capital this city was, the 
inhabitants of which could not have been less 
than half a million in number. 
I went to Placeres del Oro—“The Places of 
Gold"—from which Montezuma received the vast 
quantities of gold with which he presented 
Cortez, on the strength of a story which I heard 
from an old Indian in Cuernavaca. This Indian 
told me of these ruins, but so large did he make 
the place that I could scarcely believe him, yet 
when I arrived I found that he had not told the 
half of the extent or size of the structure which 
had once constituted a great and civilized munici- 
'pality. 
One mile north of the town of Placeres del 
Oro, at which I arrived without adventure worth 
recording, I found three great pyramids, averag¬ 
ing, respectively, thirty, thirty-five and forty feet 
in height, built in a row along the river shore. 
The yearly floods of the Balsas have been for 
ages encroaching on the western shore near the 
spot where these pyramids have been built, until 
at the present time, about one-fourth of each 
one of the pyramids has been worn away. This 
has exposed to view the foundation of the pyra¬ 
mids, which is a flat, thick platform of laid stone 
extending up and down the river for 500 yards. 
Having pitched my camp in the midst of 
these ruins, I set out one brilliant day of sum¬ 
mer to study the work of the primitive masons 
as exposed by the river along the base of the 
pyramids. On the north side of the center pyra¬ 
mid, about twenty feet above the river and fif¬ 
teen feet from the surface of the ground, I saw 
the corner of a large cut stone, projecting about 
six inches from the perpendicular bank. This 
proved to be an unornamented slab of diorite, 
forty-two inches long, twenty-four inches wide 
and three inches thick, lying directly on top of 
another slab of similar material and dimensions. 
These tablets, which appeared to have been 
set up at one time to form the walls of a mov¬ 
able box or tomb, excited my curiosity, and cling¬ 
ing precariously to the bank of the river, I began 
to dig with my small geological hammer, until 
I uncovered a third tablet, this time made of 
clay, which had metamorphosed into stone. It 
was thirty inches long, eighteen inches wide, and 
three inches in thickness, the lower side being 
covered with strange figures or hieroglyphics 
similar to those found on some of the clay 
tablets of the Old World, but unlike anything I 
have ever seen in other ruins of Mexico. This 
has since been found through thorough investi¬ 
gation to be a tablet of life, and a better idea 
of it can be gained from a glance at the accom¬ 
panying photo than from any words I might be 
able to write. 
Beneath this tablet in turn was another, also 
a sculptured tablet, lying face down and carved 
with different figures, which I have since found 
to represent death. In the intervening space be¬ 
tween the two tablets were the following objects 
closely and carefully packed together: 
A gray di-orite incense burner, seven inches 
by four inches and about two inches thick, rep¬ 
resenting the profiles of two animals’ heads, with 
their mouths open. Possibly these heads are of 
snakes, but it is impossible to state with accuracy 
just what they are intended to represent. 
A smaller incense burner three and one-half 
by two and one-half by one inches, of the same 
material, the lower portion being filled with 
human teeth. On one corner of this burner was 
a flat green jade amulet, on which was rudely 
TABLET OF LIFE, FOUND IN RUINED CITY OF PATAMBO, NEAR MODERN TOWN OF PLACERES DEL ORO. 
