8
Chorotegan artists. From the monuments etc. found farther northwards at Copan, Quirigua, Uxmal, Palenque, and other places in Central America, the works here described differ most considerably, indeed so much that it is not easy to point out more than a few common artistic features.
With the exception of the meagre notices, communicated by Oviedo and Cerezada and their compilers, the source of our knowledge of Nicaraguan antiquities is E. G. Squier's interesting work «Nicaragua: its people, scenery, monuments and the proposed interoceanic canal». After Squier some other American investigators have followed in the road opened by him; Dr Earl Flint of Rivas has during many years searched for and collected antiquities, partly in the Department of Rivas, partly in the island of Ometepec. I am obliged to Dr Flint for much valuable information on the present subject, kindly communicated to me, when I had the pleasure of meeting with him at Rivas in January 1883. He has sent the collections gradually brought together by himself, to the Smithsonian Institution. In «Archæological researches in Nicaragua»[1] Dr J. F. Bransford gives a highly interesting description of his researches in Ometepec, where he made a large collection of grave-urns, other vessels of pottery, and smaller relics of stone and metal. He occupied himself principally in investigating burying-places on the west side of the island and he has thrown a new light on this part of Niquiran archæology. His very large collection, of 788 numeros, is deposited in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. He has also figured several rock-carvings from Ometepec; these seem to be a little ruder and less complicate than those delineated by me from the island of Ceiba. Dr Bransford also describes several ancient relics from
- ↑ Smithsonian Contributions to knowledge (383), vol. 25. Washington 1885 (1881).
