358 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
having beautiful heel pieces. Around each ankle was a line of bells. Both the toe- and the finger-nails were painted white ; the right arm, bent at an angle, grasped a pole or staff of which about a foot remained. These fragments are now in the Museo Nacional, City of Mexico. The entire length of the figure, according to measurements made of the detached pieces, was nearly, if not quite, six feet.
Mound 9 — The most important excavation made at Xoxo was in Mound 9, where a trench was carried through the entire mound. Here were found cement floors and adobe construc- tions, as in the other mounds. As we worked from the western side of the mound to the center, a number of pottery vessels of different forms were unearthed ; these were placed in a manner to indicate that they were thrown in while the mound was being made, probably as mortuary offerings. In one place, a few feet from the surface and beneath the uppermost cement covering of the mound, three human skulls were found in a row, facing the west, each covered with an inverted plate. 1
A little east of the center of the mound was a flight of stone steps leading down to a cement floor ; the upper step was just beneath the cement covering of the mound. A few feet in front of the lower step was the front wall of a chamber, the most important tomb ever found in southern Mexico. The door was sealed with a large stone. The facade of the front wall was in the form of a frame, into which were placed five terra-cotta funeral urns, painted red ; on either side of the one in the center was a death's head made of stucco. The face of each urn was protected by being covered with a plate or fragment of a jar, and in one instance with part of a terra-cotta box. These funeral urns, which had been fastened against the wall with cement,
��1 This custom of covering the skull with a plate has recently been described by Mr E. H. Thompson, in his memoir on the ruins of Xkichmook, Yucatan, published by the Field Columbian Museum. He found the skulls in stone chambers or tombs beneath the floors of ruined buildings.
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