ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 
gerly sketched. We are doubtless safe 
in assuming that early in the Christian 
era certain groups of the American race, 
rising distinctly above the general level 
of barbarism, began the construction 
of stone buildings and the carving of 
monuments devoted to the service of 
their gods. They flourished for a few 
centuries only, and had passed the 
zenith of their cultural development 
long before the Spanish conquerors in 
the sixteenth century penetrated the 
tropical forests of Central America. 
Numerous important cities that had 
arisen were abandoned and in ruins 
and their story wholly forgotten by 
the decadent generations of the Col- 
umbian period. 
THE RUINS OF QUIRIGUA 
The ancient Mayan city now known 
as Quirigua is represented today by a 
group of enigmatical stone monuments 
only recently retrieved from the dense 
tropical forest which has buried them 
for unnumbered centuries. These monu- 
ments comprise a large number of build- 
ings and monolithic sculptures. Such 
buildings as remain are in an advanced 
state of ruin, while others are repre- 
sented by mere mounds and platforms 
of stones and earth. The sculptures are 
scattered over the various courts and 
plazas and bear mute testimony to the 
high state of culture achieved by the 
people during the period of their ascen- 
dancy—a period assigned by Morley to 
the early centuries of the Christian era. 
The monolithic sculptures are of two 
classes—tall, slender shafts known as 
stele, thought to have chronological 
significance, and low massive forms, 
sometimes referred to as altars. 
The stele are thirteen in number and 
range from eleven to twenty-six feet in 
height. They are elaborately carved 
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with representations of richly appareled 
personages, both male and female, with 
associated symbolic devices and glyphic 
inscriptions. The massive monuments 
are twenty in number and are extremely 
diversified in sculptural treatment and 
in the subject-matter embodied. It is 
assumed, with a high degree of proba- 
bility, that the entire group of monu- 
ments was the seat of the religious es- 
tablishment or establishments of the 
city. All monuments of perishable ma- 
terial and all non-monumental portions 
of the city have long since disappeared. 
The task of describing these monu- 
ments has been undertaken by Mauds- 
lay, Hewett, and others, and to the 
publications of these explorers those 
who would go deeply into the subject 
are referred. A single example of the 
sculptures—a work that takes high 
rank in the world of art—is selected 
for detailed presentation in this place. 
THE GREAT DRAGON 
The Stone-——The massive sculpture 
sometimes called the Great Turtle may 
well be regarded as the sculptural mas- 
terpiece par excellence of the American 
race. It is a somewhat ovoid mass of 
coarse-grained sandstone of warmish 
gray color weighing about twenty tons. 
It is upward of seven feet in height, 
and is eleven feet six inches in greater 
diameter. When the School of Ameri- 
can Archaeology began its work here, 
the surface was deeply coated with 
moss and other tropical growths which 
were carefully cleaned off by Dr. Hewett 
in 1910, repeating the task of Maudslay 
some twenty years earlier. The surface is 
now much weather-stained, displaying 
streaks and blotches of dark color, 
probably due to the weathering-out of 
ferruginous matter contained in the 
stone. The master sculptor appears to 
