Mound No. 9
Fig. 28.—Ground plan of Mound No. 9.
Mound No. 9, situated close to the chultun, with three openings, was oval in shape with flattened summit, 44 feet in breadth, 66 feet in length, and 14 feet high at its highest point. On removing the summit of the mound to a depth of about 4 feet the floor of a building, with parts of the walls, was exposed. The cap of the mound, covering the ruins of the building, was composed of blocks of marl, clay, rubble, and limestone. The lower part of the mound, upon which the building stood, was constructed of large blocks of limestone mortared together, forming a solid block of masonry. The building was in a very ruinous condition; as much of its ground plan as could be traced is shown in figure [28]. The walls, A, A, A, are 3 feet 4 inches in thickness.
Such parts as remain standing are built of well-squared stones held together by mortar (see fig. [30]). They are covered with stucco inside, which is continuous with the cement flooring of the rooms; outside they were also covered with stucco above the water table (B, figs. 28 and 29) but nearly all of this had been broken away. The water table, which projects 3 inches from the wall, is 12 inches deep; it is built of well-squared stones not covered with stucco, and is continuous below (figs. 29 and 30) with C, a layer of hard cement 18 inches broad, which apparently ran completely round the building, and possibly acted as a drain to carry off the water after heavy tropical showers. The main room was 8 feet in breadth and had probably been about 30 feet in length, with four doors opening into it, two on each side. This was floored with very hard, smooth, polished cement, which even now is in an excellent state of preservation; this flooring is continuous through the doorways with the top of the water table, with which it is on the same level. Nothing was found in excavating this mound, with the exception of a fragment of a conch-shell trumpet, a piece of an obsidian knife, numerous potsherds, and half of a flint paint grinder, with traces of green paint still adherent to it. All of these objects were found on the floor of the main room.
Fig. 29.—Wall construction of Mound No. 9.
Mounds erected over the ruins of buildings are extremely common all through this part of the Maya area; some are very large, covering buildings which had been placed on lofty stone pyramids; some are very small, as when they cover buildings of a single small room, built almost on the ground level. All the buildings are in ruins, all are raised more or less on stone platforms above the ground level, and all show traces of having been covered with stucco, both internally and externally. In some cases this stucco is very beautifully decorated in colored devices, as in the mound already described at Santa Rita;[36] in others the stucco is molded in various designs and ornaments, which may or may not be colored, as in the mound at Pueblo Nuevo on the Rio Nuevo, presently to be described. Most of these mounds contain nothing except the building which they cover, but some had been used as burial places, the interments evidently having taken place after the building had been covered in, as they are found irregularly distributed through the loose superstructure which forms the cap of the mound, quite close to the surface.[37]
Fig. 30.—Details of Mound No. 9.