Abstract
ARCHAIC SCULPTURE, GORGONA ISLAND, SOUTH AMERICA.—Mr. James Hornell, who is the official ethnologist of the St. George Expedition, organised by the Scientific Expeditionary Research Association, gives in Man for June a detailed account of the archaic sculptures which were discovered on Gorgona Island, off the coast of Colombia. These sculptures were on two groups of boulders, the majority of the older examples being below present tidal level. On many of the stones it can only be discerned that designs have existed, but on four they are comparatively well preserved. These form an ordered group around a huge, roughly quadrangular boulder bearing upon its upper surface the representations of a pair of rude ungainly human figures, male and female, each with a number of rays around the head in the shape of a halo. The figures stand side by side. The male measures 1 ft. 10 in. in height. The outlines are formed by broad, shallow, rounded grooves. On another stone is a rudely sculptured stepped pyramid of four superimposed platforms, progressively decreasing in size. Six circular depressions or cups occupy the face of the third storey and the upper half of the second. This pyramid may be a representation of an early form of the Mayan and Aztec temple of the sun, the six cups representing astral deities. Of the other two boulders, each has a representation of a monkey of crude and childish design. Other sculptures, belonging to another and later group, and pottery and stone implements were also found.
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Research Items. Nature 116, 111–113 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116111a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116111a0