Page:Nicaraguan Antiquities (1886).djvu/34

 anterior part of the head and the cheeks were carved with softness and elegance. Behind the head of the human figure the head of the vulture was united to its support by a snailshaped spiral (volute) with wide aperture. Although the kneeling male figure was not perhaps so well worked as the image H, yet it was well balanced, and of an easy posture. The forehead was straight, the nose slightly curved, the mouth closed, the lower lip thin, prominent; the cheeks were rather thin, the ears disproportionately large, and placed too far backwards. The neck was long, the Adam's apple was indicated on the throat. The chest was rather little developed, the shoulders and upper arms vigorous, the hands pressed against the sides of the legs. The male organ was placed high up on the abdomen. The legs below the knees were of equal thickness throughout, without any trace of muscles, smoothly rounded backwards, without feet. The pedestal being broken, the statue was thrown down in the middle of the «plaza», the open place or square between the mounds 1, 2, 3 and 4. The length of the vulture's head from the anterior edge of the beak to the posterior edge of the process at the back of the head was 100 cm., the height of the head from the top to the inferior edge of the lower jaw 37 cm. The whole length of the statue from the upper edge of the tenon- shaped projection to the upper edge of the pedestal was 154 cm. The upper part of the pedestal formed a square plinth, on which the human figure was kneeling.

Male, sitting figure, with its head strongly bent forward, supporting on its shoulders and the back of its head the large head of an animal, which was possibly meant to represent the head of a tortoise or a lizard. This head was rather little elaborated, evenly rounded above, having in front a round, beak-shaped mouth. A circular cavity before and over the posterior corner of the mouth represented the eye. At the back this head carried two high, rectangular, double plates, which may possibly be regarded as representing the beginning of the back armour of the tortoise, or perhaps the scales of a lizard or a serpent. The human figure was very well elaborated; next to the figure A it was certainly, from an artistic point of view, the most carefully