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308 are sculptured with great care, and a fine example is shown on Pl. XXII; p. 294. The loom used must have been of the same type as that found throughout Mexico and Central America in historical times (Fig. 66; compare Fig. 27, b; p. 148).

The subject of Maya pottery, though extremely interesting, has not yet been studied sufficiently to yield any very important results, as far as indicating the direction in which the culture spread. It is complicated moreover by the fact that there was evidently a considerable trade in pottery in early times, and the ware of a good factory spread far and wide over a large area. Besides this the available material has not yet been fully classified, and much more excavation must be performed before really representative collections, illustrative of the various districts, can be brought together. Seler has attempted to trace to some extent the wanderings of pottery from certain centres of manufacture; he calls attention to the finding in Guatemala of ware of Tarascan type; and concludes that the ware of Huehuetenango and Chiquimula spread over the whole of south-western Guatemala and south-eastern Chiapas, while that of Jilotepec in the Guatemalan province of Jalapa was carried to south-eastern Guatemala and western San Salvador. The Maya had carried the fictile art to a high degree of development, though they never obtained such a mastery over their material as the coastal tribes of Peru. Naturally the quality of the ware varies considerably according to the use for which the vessel was intended, but the paste in the best specimens is hard, well mixed and fired, and varies in colour from a bright terra-cotta to pale cream, though the majority of fragments are of a reddish tinge; black pottery is rare. Some of the Guatemalan vases are moulded from a clay containing a large percentage of mica, and these are usually softer than the better-class ware; while certain vessels from the Peten district are