Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/265

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THE RUINS OF IXKUN AND THE PINE RIDGE.
177

We set to work to dig into the mound on the summit of the southern hill, and, as we expected, unearthed the remains of a small building facing north. The walls were in some parts perfect to the height of six feet, and they appear to have been built separately (as indicated by the shading in the Plan).
1 in. = 8 ft.
PLAN OF TEMPLE.
The entrance-passage and interior of the chamber were lined with small well-wrought blocks of stone, but the material is so soft that it could easily be cut with a knife. The floor had a covering of cement, which was in good condition, and the outside of the walls appears to have had a thick coating of the same material. A stone lintel and a few slabs, which may have been used for roofing, and some fragments of rough pottery were met with in digging out the debris. Along the back of the chamber was a raised bench about two feet high, and in the face of it was a niche about twenty inches by eighteen, which was much smoke-stained and had probably been used for burning offerings of copal. We also dug into the mound on the summit of the northern hill, and with some difficulty were able to trace the walls of a building which must have closely resembled its companion facing it on the opposite side of the valley. On the broken floor of the chamber we discovered portions of three earthen pots and some fragments of a good-sized stucco figure. We were able to piece together two fragments of a well-modelled face, which must have been about ten inches in breadth, and to ascertain that the eyes had been made of obsidian.

Earthern Pot from Yaxché Almost all round the ruined town there are numberless limestone hills between fifty and three hundred feet in height, and at the top of nearly every one of them are foundation-mounds or tumuli. In some cases these foundations are merely outlined in rough stones, in others they are flat oblong mounds, which may have supported buildings of a perishable material. A common arrangement of the remains on these hilltops is given in the accompanying sketch. I opened one set thus arranged. The monnd A had probably supported a small "cue" or shrine; a terrace ran in front of it, which was reached by a short flight of