MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN HEYE FOUNDATION, NEW YORK]
In the graves and tombs at Cuilapa were discovered many personal
ornaments made of jadeite, amazon stone, and turquois. In an excavation
made during January, 1902, in the great temple mound, or teocalli,
dominating the group of mogotes at Cuilapa, a grave was discovered on
the summit at a depth of six feet from the surface. It contained the
skeleton of a child, whose bones, together with the accompanying
artifacts, were stained bright-red by hematite paint which had been
thrown into the grave. Surrounding the skeleton were seventeen
greenstone idols in the form of human figures; more than four hundred
beads of greenstone and jadeite of varying sizes; thirty-five shells
of various kinds, perforated for suspension; bits of mother-of-pearl,
obsidian, and hematite, which evidently were fragments of disintegrated
mosaic objects; but the most interesting objects recovered were a pair
of small discs of pottery, upon the flat upper surfaces of which were
cemented small pieces of very thin, highly-polished hematite, placed in
mosaic. These last were undoubtedly mirrors, although from the small
perforation in the center of each we are inclined to regard the pair as
having been used also as ear-ornaments. One of these specimens should
be in the Museo Nacional of Mexico, where it belongs; the other is in
the American Museum of Natural History. The latter, now illustrated for
the first time (fig. 7), is an inch and three-quarters in diameter, and
an eighth of an inch in thickness. Our reproduction of this interesting
object has been made possible by the courtesy of Dr. Clark Wissler,
Curator of Anthropology.
[Illustration: FIG. 7]
An interesting specimen of the combination of gold with turquois
mosaic in jewelry has been recently figured in colors, and described
by the writer (see fig. 8).[77] It is in the form of a shield, with
four arrows or darts and pendent bells, and has an extreme length of
three and one-eighth inches from the top of the shield to the bottom
of the central bells. We have described in detail the meaning of the
hieroglyph formed by the mosaic-work, and shown that the brooch-like
jewel was the insignia of one of the four principal chiefs of the
Aztecan army, who governed one of the four wards, or _calpullis_, into
which Tenochtitlan, the capital of Montezuma, was divided. As a matter
of fact, the jewel was found in a grave in Yanhuitlan, in the Mixteca
region of Oaxaca. It is the only known specimen that shows turquois
set on gold, a combination to which we have called attention, in
quoting from Sahagun and others, regarding turquois mosaic on crowns,
bracelets, and other gold objects for personal adornment.
[Illustration: FIG. 8]
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