Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/412

 saville] ZAPOTECAN TOMBS 357

covered by a large flat stone of irregular shape, and the corners were filled in with broken metates. Above the lintel of the door, in a niche, was a small funeral urn painted red, and the stones around this urn, as well as the lintel and sides of the doorway, were painted the same color (plate XXlll). Just inside the door were a metate and handstone, and, a few inches away, a line of food vessels extending across the chamber. Back of the vessels, near the center of the tomb, was a heap of greatly decayed human bones — the remains of four or five skeletons — which rested on the floor, and at least six inches of earth had silted into the tomb, partly covering the remains found therein.

Another trench was started at the eastern side of this mound, and after working down to the level of the surrounding fields near the center of the mound just back of the tomb, there were found the scattered fragments of what will be, when restored, the largest specimen of terra-cotta ever found in America, and I do not know of so large a specimen ever having been found else- where. It represented a warrior, and the different pieces of the figure were scattered over a space of about fifteen feet. The central fragment was the head, upper torso, and right arm, lying face upward ; the open mouth revealed the teeth painted white and filed, as in the case of the funeral urns. The eyes were well modeled and painted white and red ; the head was covered with a turban of feathers, somewhat resembling the head-dress of Chac Mol, found by Dr Le Plongeon in Yucatan. A closely cropped beard covered the lower portion of the face, the upper part being pitted as though marked by smallpox. The ears had curious circular ornaments pendent by a string passed through holes pierced in the lobes. The nose was ornamented with a long cylindrical bead attached by a string fastened at the top and bottom through the septum. The breast was painted red and white and additionally ornamented with curious designs made by circular indentations. The legs, which lay quite separated from the body, were bare, and the feet were covered with sandals

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