Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/375

Rh Maya (Fig. 67). The use of a slip-covering to pottery is found throughout the whole area, though it is by no means constant; the colour is most commonly red or yellow, though white and brown are also found. Painted decoration is also in slip, of similar colours, and where figures are represented they are usually outlined in black (e.g. Pl. XXIV). The funerary pottery of British Honduras shows a greater variety of hue; in many cases the slip (white) is so thick as almost to amount to a kind of stucco, and on this the details are painted in brilliant colours, including a bright red and a turquoise-blue (Pl. IX, 7-11; p. 82).

Designs are frequently found engraved in slip, and the most interesting of such vessels come from the Vera Paz district. Beakers with expanding foot, exactly similar to the specimens from Sacrificios, are found here, with incised patterns from which, in some cases, the background has been cut away. Such vases have been found also in the neighbourhood of Chacula, but the engraved pots most characteristic of Guatemala belong to the type of which a fine specimen is shown in Fig. 68. Here the design is cut in a thick white slip, and represents the sky-god emerging from a shell, probably symbolizing his connection with the moon. A vase of interesting type and ornamented in somewhat similar fashion,