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18.1. EDWIN M. SHOOK Yucatán and Chiapas YB 54:289–295, 1955 Except for the brief time occupied by field activities at Mayapán, Shook spent the major portion of the past season in Mérida. There, at the Department’s ceramic laboratory, he studied the pottery of Mayapán, assisted Berlin with his report on Tabasco, and recorded a number of privately owned archaeological collections. Shook also devoted about five weeks to exploration of ruins in the environs of Mérida, on the coast of Campeche , and in the central highlands of Chiapas. The private collections in Mérida range in size from several specimens to over a hundred, usually of pottery, recovered from sources widely dispersed throughout theYucatán peninsula. Though often lacking important information on exact provenience and association, these collections provide complete examples for study of many ceramic types previously known only from sherds. In rare instances, the contents of a single tomb or grave have been retained by the collectors, and in such cases contemporaneity and cultural relations may be established from association of pottery types. 18.0. Chiapas 413 Within the modern city of Mérida and on its outskirts , the last vestiges of the preconquest settlements are fast disappearing. The ancient structures are beingdemolishedtoclearspacefornewfactories ,houses, streets, and the like, or because the archaeological mounds provide a more readily accessible supply of buildingstonethandothequarriesofnativelimestone. An effort was made to map, photograph, and collect sherd samples from as many of the archaeological sites as time permitted. The following ruins were, briefly visited and recorded. Tecoh is situated on the lands of Hacienda Tecoh, 6 km south of the central plaza of Mérida. Twenty or more ancient house mounds and low platforms, several rectangular mounds 2–3 m high, and one pyramidal structure approximately 8 m high are arranged around a cenote with a permanent water source and, a spacious natural cave. The cave, now dry, may once have had a shallow pool of water, but its principal use appears to have been for quarrying sascab (lime gravel) for building purposes. The ancient quarrying on the T H E C A R N E G I E M A Y A 414 CHIAPAS cave’s cast side created a low-ceilinged chamber fully 25 m in diameter. The entrance from the natural cave to the large artificially dug chamber had been closed by a thick stone wall except for a single narrow, lowroofed passage. A search by flashlight of the pitchdark room resulted in the recovery of only a few potsherds around the floor, edges and near the entrance passage. Outside, on the cave floor and in the fill of a collapsed part of the masonry wall, were potsherds in abundance. An unselected surface collection included a few Preclassic, a preponderance of Early Classic, and several Late Classic and Early Postclassic sherds. Among the latter was a decorated spindle whorl similar to some from deposits of the Toltec Period at Chichén Itzá. The cenote has a roughly circular orifice and a rockyfloor-slopingdowntoadeep,poolofwaterabout 20 m from the entrance. A well-worn path with a few artificially cut steps leads to the water’s edge. Along one side of the path, crudely sculptured in the natural rock, is a grotesque writhing serpent. The Tecoh mounds, now almost entirely robbed of facing stones, are identified by featureless heaps of small dry rock fill. A careful search among the rock piles disclosed that Late Classic Medium Paste Slateware sherds predominate over other pottery types, though Preclassic and Early Classic types are present. A few scattered cut and dressed wall stones also suggested that the major occupation of the site was during the Late Classic Puuc Period. Quinta Miraflores is apparently a small site, as remnants of only three mounds remain. The ruins are located in the gardens 100 m east of the main house of the property called Quinta Miraflores, 4 km east of the central plaza of Mérida. The present small acreage of the quinta is surrounded by a residential section which formerly was a part of Quinta Miraflores. Two of the archaeological mounds have been reduced by quarrying to barely discernible outlines, but the third retains some architectural features. The local people report the last to have been approximately 10 m high before quarrying brought it to its present height of 1.5 m. Exposed are vertical and sloping terrace walls, lime-plastered stairways, and floors of four successive building stages. The...

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