FIG. 66.
Unmodelled.

FIG. 67.
Modelled.

EXCAVATED STATUES.

FIG. 68.
Showing back in process of being modelled. ]No. 23. Fig. 50.]

FIG. 69.
Showing image wedged by boulders.

Scamping did not often occur, and when it did so it was in the concealed portions. In one case the left hand was correctly modelled, but the right was not even indicated beyond the wrist (fig. 63). The statue shown in the frontispiece, which rejoices in the name of Piro-piro, meaning “bad odour,”[[24]] stands at the foot of the slope, and appears to remain as it was set up without further burial. It is a well-made figure, probably one of the most recent, and the upper part of the back is carefully moulded, but on digging it out it was found that the bottom had not been finished, but left in the form of a rough excrescence of stone; there was no ring, but a girdle had been carved on the protruding portion, so that this was not intended to be removed. In another instance a large head had fallen on a slope at such an angle that it was impossible to locate the position of the body; curiosity led to investigation, when it was found that the thing was a fraud, the magnificent head being attached to a little dwarf trunk, which must have been buried originally nearly to the neck to keep the top upright. These instances of “jerry-building” confirm our impression that at any rate a large number of the statues were intended to remain in situ.

Indications were found of two different methods of erection, and the mode may have been determined by the nature of the ground. By the first procedure the statue seems to have been placed on its face in the desired spot, and a hole to have been dug beneath the base. The other method was to undermine the base, with the statue lying face uppermost; in several instances a number of large stones were found behind the back of the figure, evidently having been used to wedge it while it was dragged to the vertical. The upright position had sometimes been only partially attained; one statue was still in a slanting attitude, corresponding exactly to the slope of a hard clay wall behind it; the interval between the two, varying from three yards to eighteen inches, had been packed with sub-angular boulders which weighed about one hundredweight, or as much as a man could lift (fig. 69).