Zapatera exhibits an abundant variety of beautiful scenery, delightful valleys, watered by streams and rivulets, fertile elevated plains, magnificent mountain-cones, clothed in verdure to the very summits, and bays and lagoons offering excellent harbours. Unfortunately I had not an opportunity of examining, in an archæologic point of view, more than a part of the north side of the island and the islet of Ceiba. My kind hosts of the settlement in the island, Don José Lobo, Donna Julia Solorzano, S:rita Virginia Mora, Don Jacinto Mora and others, zealously assisted me in my zoological as well as archæological investigations. Through their warm-hearted benevolence my stay in Zapatera became the most pleasant remembrance of my long journey.
The results of my antiquarian researches in Zapatera may be referred to three stations: 1:0. The first station is Punta del Sapote; the extreme north-western point of the island, where statues, potteries, and stone relics were found. This station is beyond all comparison the most important one, because it has never, as far as I know, been examined, nor even mentioned. It possesses so much greater importance, as several statues were found in their original position, thus affording an insight into the manner how they were used. 2:0. The second station is Punta de las Figuras. It forms part of the edge of the crater, sloping softly towards the lake, between Laguna de Apoyo and Bahia de Chiquero. It has been previously visited by Squier, who has given figures of several of the statues. Besides those mentioned by him, many of which I did not find, I lighted upon some that had escaped his attention. In this locality only insignificant remains of pottery were met with. 3:0. The third station is the little island of Ceiba, which, instead of statues, that are wanting, offers some very well preserved rock-carvings of evidently very ancient date, and, besides, valuable relics of earthen-ware and stone. Although my visit to Zapatera was posterior in time to my stay in Ometepec, I shall begin the detailed description of the antiquities with those of the first station in Zapatera.
I
STATUES IN
PUNTA DEL SAPOTE.
Punta del Sapote forms a broad, rounded peninsula, the greatest length of which is in N.E. and S.W. Its middle part is a large plateau, about 150 m. high, sloping rapidly both towards the lake and the neck of the peninsula, and thus forming an isolated height of somewhat more than one kilometer in length by scarcely one kilometer in breadth. The central portion of this plateau is perfectly level and, judging by the numerous statues met with here, and the regular form of the stone-mounds, round which they were placed, appears to have been a sacred place during the Niquiran period. On the very isthmus between the peninsula and the island of Zapatera rose a conical stone-structure, 30-40 m. high; it consisted of enormous, unhewn blocks, placed upon one another in pretty regular layers. Its diameter at the base might be estimated at about 40 m. The top of the cone was truncated, and appeared to form a plane of 6-8 m. in diameter. The steep sides were so densely covered by spinous bushes and lians, that I was soon obliged to desist from my attempts to mount the summit. The whole structure resembled a kind of beacon, and has possibly been a place of sacrifice, although its dimensions were so large, that it cannot well be regarded as such a «sacrificial pillar» as is mentioned by Peter Martyr under the name of «Tezarit». Maybe a little «casita» has stood on the platform above. Something of the same kind is known from Uxmal.
Due north of this cone, on the top of the above mentioned plateau, were six stone-mounds of oval form, but of very different size. The largest ([Pl. 41: 1]) measured about fifty m. in length by thirty m. in breadth, the smallest ([Pl. 41: 6]) about fifteen m. in length by somewhat less than half in breadth. The greatest diameter of each mound was in N. and S. The stones of these mounds varied of course in size, but for the most part they were large, more or less cubical, from half a meter to one meter long and about half a meter broad. Their often regular shape and pretty plane sides, particularly in the mound 1, might lead one to infer that some of them have been hewn, and have formed the foundations and possibly also the walls of buildings, the ground plans of which are indicated by the form of the mounds and the situation of the statues, of which we are soon going to speak.