Designs are frequently found engraved in slip, and the most interesting of such vessels come from the Vera Paz district. Beakers with expanding foot, exactly similar to the specimens from Sacrificios, are found here, with incised patterns from which, in some cases, the background has been cut away. Such vases have been found also in the neighbourhood of Chacula, but the engraved pots most characteristic of Guatemala belong to the type of which a fine specimen is shown in Fig. 68. Here the design is cut in a thick white slip, and represents the sky-god emerging from a shell, probably symbolizing his connection with the moon. A vase of interesting type and ornamented in somewhat similar fashion, is illustrated in Fig. 69. This specimen was found at Ococingo in Chiapas, and is furnished with a cover. Vases found with covers are rare, but no doubt the covers of many have been lost; three vessels however with covering plates of black ware have been discovered at La Cueva near Coban, and with them were found certain vases of a type unique in this region, representing a human figure of which the head could be removed and constituted a lid. Pots somewhat similar in design are known from the lower Amazon in South America. A certain proportion of the pottery is mould-made, and this method appears to have been most extensively employed in the Alta Vera Paz area, where moulds for the manufacture of whole pots have been found. Some of the mould-made vases are of good quality and shape, and the design often includes a row of glyphs. Vases of this type have been discovered also at Copan and in the Uloa valley. From Vera Paz also come plaques with excellent designs, including figures holding the “ceremonial bar,” together with the moulds in which they were made. These are in hard terra-cotta coloured clay, and are not furnished with a slip. Many details to serve as applied ornament to vases and censers were also made in moulds (e.g. the sun-face which forms the cover-design), while a great proportion of the figurines and whistles throughout the Maya region were similarly constructed. [Illustration: FIG. 70.--Pottery vase from Coban, Guatemala. (_After Seler_)] [Illustration: FIG. 71.--Pottery censer from Nebaj, Guatemala. (_Fleischmann Collection_)]