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, 3-1/2 feet broad at the center. The part of the wall left
standing varied from 2 to 3-1/2 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: (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.
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