Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/382

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MEXICAN ARCHÆOLOGY

work discovered at Sacrificios, Teotihuacan and in the Tarascan country. The turquoise-blue colour occurring on pots in the last style is rare in the Maya area, and 1s limited to the pottery of British Honduras and certain figurines which seem to bear a close relation to the early culture to which the ruins belong. The ware of the Uloa valley, which has been investigated with some care by Gordon, displays technical qualities which are identical with that of Copan, but is distinguished by a number of features, principally relating to ornament, which give it a character of its own. Many features suggestive of Totonac influence appear in the pottery of British Honduras, and though the ware is, to speak technically, of inferior quality, considerable artistic skill is shown in the modelling of the human face (e.g. Pl. X, 3; p. 108). The attribution of forms, as given above, to different districts can however only be regarded as tentative, and will probably have to be modified in the light of subsequent discoveries. 'The most pressing need is an accurate classification of Maya pottery, together with a careful investigation of the various qualities of paste employed in different districts. The latter is particularly important, since it would afford far more valuable evidence regarding centres of pottery manufacture than a mere study of the forms. Community of form after all only implies connection, and often merely trade-connection which may be second, third, or fourth hand; but a careful investigation of the material will often reveal the actual locality of manufacture, and when this has been fixed for a number of centres, the main lines of trade and the artistic influence exerted by one locality upon another can be estimated with some degree of accuracy.