Fig. 64.—Glyph outlined on outer surface of rim of vase shown in fig. [63].
Mound No. 20 was situated at Pueblo Nuevo, about 6 miles from the mouth of the Rio Nuevo, in the northern district of British Honduras. The mound was about 100 feet in length and varied from 8 to 12 feet in height and from 15 to 25 feet in breadth. It was built throughout of earth, limestone dust, and blocks of limestone, a great many of which had been squared. Immediately beneath the surface, running east and west along the long diameter of the mound and nearly centrally placed in it, was the upper surface of a wall, which had evidently at one time formed part of a building of considerable size. This wall was built of finely squared blocks of limestone mortared together, and was somewhat more than 18 inches thick. It extended for 40 feet, turning at right angles at both the eastern and western extremities and was broken by a single opening, 31/2 feet broad at the center. The part of the wall left standing varied from 2 to 31/2 feet in height and was covered on its inner surface by a layer of smooth, yellow, very hard cement; the outer surface, which still retained traces of painted stucco moldings, ended below in a floor of hard cement 12 inches thick. The greater part of these moldings had been broken away, but portions were still adherent to the wall and great quantities of fragments, painted red and blue, were found immediately beneath the wall from which they had been broken. The most important of these were:
Fig. 65.—Torso, head, and headdress from Mound No. 20.
Fig. 66.—Fragment of pillar found in Mound No. 20.
(a) Two human torsos, one (the more elaborate) of which is seen in figure [65], c. (b) Three human heads, one of which is represented in figure [65], b, in situ. Both heads and torsos are life size, and both are painted red and blue throughout.[46] (c) Two headdresses, one of which is seen in situ in figure [65], a; the other is almost precisely similar in coloring and design. (d) Fragments of elaborately molded pillars, which had originally separated the figures on the wall. A portion of one of these is shown in figure [66]. This design was repeated three times upon the front of the pillar, the back of which was flattened for attachment to the wall. Great quantities of fragments of painted stucco, of all shapes and sizes, were dug out of the mound, but the human figures, with the pillars which separated them, were the only objects the original positions of which on the wall it was possible to determine with certainty. Resting upon the layer of hard cement in which the wall terminated below, between 5 and 6 feet from the eastern end and close to the wall itself, was found an adult human skeleton, the bones of which were huddled together within a very small compass, in a manner suggesting secondary burial. In removing these bones nearly all of them crumbled to pieces. Throughout the whole mound were found numerous potsherds, some of very fine pottery, colored and polished; others thick, rough, and undecorated. Fragments of flint and obsidian, broken flint spearheads and scrapers, and broken obsidian knives were also found.