Remains at Quirigua.
A little brook with chalybeate waters cost us both a wetting; for Frank’s mare stuck in a mud-hole, and my mule slid down a steep bank backwards into the water, soaking my saddlebags. After travelling three hours on this muddy road, we came to a clearing, where were two large champas fast going to ruin. Mr. A. P. Maudslay, an Englishman who has spent much labor and money in exploring Guatemaltecan antiquities, had been here twice, and not only cleared a considerable space around the principal monuments, but had cleaned the stones, and even made moulds in plaster of some of them; he had also built the champas that sheltered us. We spread our wet things over a fire, and went to the first monument (A on the plan), which was close at hand. Mr. Catherwood’s sketches, published in Stephens’s most interesting Travels, led us to expect rough menhirs quite analogous to the Standing Stones of Stennis, or those better known of Stonehenge. Here, rising from a pool of water collected in the excavation Mr. Maudslay had made to examine the foundation, was a monolith of light-colored, coarse-grained sandstone, well carved over its entire surface except top and bottom. On the front and back were full-length human figures, not deities, but attempted likenesses, joined with the tigre’s head to indicate chieftainship, and a skull to represent death. Both sides were covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions quite distinct, but not intelligible to any living being. (See Frontispiece.) What would I have given to be permitted to read the stone-cut story! No locked chamber ever inspired half the curiosity. When was this stone set up, by whom, and to what purpose? Whose are the portraits, when did these persons live, and what did they do for their fellows. The mocking answer to all these questions is cut in the stone before us. The native name of idolos is an idle one, unless used in the Greek sense; for these are no gods, but memorials of the dead as distinctly as the tombstones in our modern graveyards. While the hieroglyphs are similar to those at Copan and Palenque, they are not, I think, identical, and I fancy they are of the nature of the denominative cartouches of the Egyptian obelisks. I copy Mr. Maudslay’s plan of this group of monuments, from which it will at once be seen that their relative position to the other remains is puzzling in the extreme. We left our imaginings for the time, and proceeded to the practical work of photography. This was no light task; for the sun was behind trees which cast shadows on the monuments, while the shady side was almost invisible in the camera. Insects swarmed in front of the lens, and the heat was almost insupportable under the rubber focusing-cloth. However, I succeeded fairly in carrying away a dozen pictures. Whether I can with no greater difficulty explain to my readers what this cemetery looked like, even with the aid of Mr. Maudslay’s rough plan, is more questionable.
We entered a clearing, some four hundred feet square, made only the year before, but already covered with undergrowth, so that our men had to use their machetes freely to expose the stones. The level was low and the soil full of water, which stood in pools here and there. On our left was a mound, more than two hundred feet long, which we did not inspect, and in front of this were placed three monoliths. The first (A) was the smallest; the second (B) was four feet wide, three feet deep, and perhaps sixteen feet high; the third (C) was four feet nine inches wide, two feet nine inches deep, and eighteen feet high. Both B and C stood on irregular ends, and the tops of all were left much as they came from the quarry. Two taller ones stood on the opposite side of the clearing. One (F) was inclined (as it was to a much less extent when Mr. Catherwood made his drawing, forty years ago), and the under side has been protected from the weather, so that the face is well preserved, the large nose being intact. This face, unlike the one on the opposite side, is below the general level of the sculptures, suggesting a substitution of the present portrait for the original one. The inclination is about thirty-six degrees from the vertical; and as the stone is about twenty-five feet above ground, it must be wedged with large foundation-stones, or be buried deep in the soft earth.
MONOLITH AT QUIRIGUA, E.
Monolith at Quirigua, F.
Of all the portraits cut upon these stones, this leaning monolith has the most remarkable. The hands and feet are represented in the same conventional manner as on the stone marked E; but the immense size of the nose, as well as of the ears, distinguishes it from all others. The cast of countenance is very Egyptian. On many of these sculptures are seen indications of the worship of the cross (as in the figure on the reverse of E), although this symbol is usually of complicated form, as on the celebrated tablet at Palenque. The monolith B has on the breast, in place of the cross, the double triangle, sometimes called Solomon’s Seal, and, like the cross, a well-known symbol of primitive worship. The nose of the figure on what is now the upper side of F, is broken, but was of large size originally.
There were several curious features in the decorative or symbolic work on the monument marked E on the plan. The plumes above the head are very extensive, and there are two distinct heads of the tigre, superimposed with two well-modelled hands extending from the union. The face is much injured. The ears are enormous, and beneath the chin is a projection reminding one of the “beard-case” of the ancient Egyptians. One arm, with ruffled sleeve, holds an instrument much like a “jumping-jack,” or else a human body impaled, while the other is concealed beneath a richly ornamented target. The feet are turned out, and on them rest what closely resemble felt hats with plumes, while the pedestal (part of the one stone) on which the figure stands, bears the death’s-head surmounted by a small head with the remarkable ears of the chief figure. On the reverse the features of the figure are better preserved. A diadem is distinct under a large and very realistic jaguar-head, the ears are covered by strap-like ornaments, the sandals elaborately wrought, and the hat-like ornaments much more distinct than on the other side. The costume is more elaborate, although not cut in so high relief.
