A number of these large flat mounds containing multiple burials have been from time to time completely dug down near Corozal, in order to obtain stone for repairing the streets. Beneath nearly all of them were found trenches cut through the earth down to the subjacent limestone. These trenches varied from 2 to 5 feet in breadth; in the case of the smaller mounds they formed a parallelogram, a triangle, or even a single straight line; in the larger mounds two parallelograms were joined by parallel trenches (see fig. 23). They were invariably filled with small rubble, and a few of them contained interments in their walls. The purpose of these trenches is difficult to surmise, as they could hardly have served as foundations; drainage was unnecessary; and, while the trenches themselves were never employed for sepulchral purposes, it is only occasionally that a few burials are found within cists excavated in the earth along their margins. Three kinds of burial seem to have been commonly employed among the ancient inhabitants of this part of the Maya area. The poorest class were buried in large flat mounds, some of them a half an acre in extent and containing as many as 40 to 50 interments. The body was usually buried with the feet drawn under the pelvis, the knees flexed on the abdomen, the arms crossed over the chest, and the face pressed down on the knees; the position, in fact, in which it would occupy the smallest possible space. With the remains are usually found a few objects of the roughest workmanship, as flint hammerstones, scrapers, and spearheads, pottery or shell beads, stone metates and henequen scrapers, small obsidian knives and cores, and unglazed, rough pottery vessels. In the second class of burials, each individual has a mound, varying from 2 to 30 feet in height, to himself. Several mounds of this class have already been described from the neighborhood of Corozal. The objects found with interments of this class are usually more numerous and of better workmanship than those found in the multiple burial mounds, though they do not show much greater variety. The position of the skeleton, where it has been possible to ascertain this, is usually the same as in the multiple burial mounds; occasionally, however, it is found in the prone position, and, in rare instances, buried head down. The third mode of burial was probably reserved for priests, caciques, and other important individuals. The interment took place in a stone cist or chamber, within a large mound, varying from 20 to 50 feet in height. The skeleton is found in the prone position, surrounded by well painted and decorated vases, together with beautiful greenstone, shell, obsidian, and mother-of-pearl beads, gorgets, studs, ear plugs, and other ornaments.[56] Some of these mounds contain two or even three chambers or cists, superimposed one upon the other. The skeleton is then usually found in the top cist, the accompanying objects being placed in the lower ones.