Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1911 — FIND A PREHISTORIC STAMP [ARTICLE]

FIND A PREHISTORIC STAMP

Official Seal Uncovered—foy-GanST'Dtg*-gers of Atzcapozalco—Wax Clinging to Face. New York. —One of the most remarkable archaeological and ethnological discoveries made in Mexico since Prof. William Niven found the famous clay tablets of life and death down in the jungles of Gqerrero, has been made amid the buried pile of petrified idols uncovered by the sand diggers of Atzcapo’zaleo. This find consists of nothing legs than an official seal, or stamp, used by some prehistoric emperor or king ?n affixing his O. K. to papers of state, -The-discovery was made about 18 -feet beneath the •kurface-ot-lhe old river, or lake bed, which exists near the pretty suburb above named. This stream or pool has long been dead, .the waters having been diverted by **iiatufe—Ttr-andOigit -direction. so that now it is merely a basin of gravel overlaid with sand. —The_artifact, which is about two inches in diameter, wndjn a perfect of preservation, is remarkable for the fact that it contains, on the side used for stamping, several concentric circles at the margin, then a ring of hieroglyphics much resembling the characters of the ancient Russian alphabet, and around the center three more concentric rings. SS—t The center itself is a corrugated hole, evidently used forithe insertion of a wooden or stone hajftjle. The upper surface of the seah which is, of

course, circular In shape, is Founded, so that the entire object forms almost hemisphere. On the top are carved in the seal after the clay had hardened, and possibly intended to represent the f'gns of the zodiac, as they were known to the primitive astronomers of Mexico. When found, particles of some black substance, evidently either wax or some ink-like fluid, .were still clinging to the face, showing that the seal had great action by the' waters,—— :