The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1906-01-04
NEW WORLD MUMMIES
REMAINS OF CLIFF JEWELLERS
FOUND IN SOUTHWEST.
Chamber in Solid Granite Wall Yields
the Remains of an Ancient
Race--Great Find for
Scientists,


Many persons who have an interest
In archaeology will be surprised to know
that not ii the mummles TO be seen
in museums have been taken from far
away tombs in Egypt or other eastern
lands. Well-preserved mummies have
occasionally been taken from the ruins
of the cliff dwelers in the mountain
canyons in Arizona and also in New
Mexico and southern California.
These mummies. though poor speci-
mems of the mummifying art, are con.
sidered great treasures by scientists
because they give the anthropologist
vague idea of the strange people who
had the earliest civilization on the
American continent. The best of them
are almost entirely ignorant of VINO
the Aztecs and Toltecs were. how they
looked and lived and why they have
been so entirely obliterated from the
face of the earth
The reason for this ignorance Is
found in the fact that no satisfactory
remains of the dead Aztecs have been
foun1. These people were cremation
lists and they probably burned house,
hold effects with the dead, leaving lit
tie or nothing for the scientist to build
a tn aory upon.
Frequently a party of explorers in
the valleys of Arizona will come upon
sealed jars of burned bone dust But
the mummy which was found by two
gold mine prospectors in lonely can
yon along the Gila river in the heart of
the country once occupied by the Az
tees and Toltecs has excited much at
tention. The hollow in the rocks was
about seven feet deep and four feet
high. 1t was evidently made for the
purpose of burial OF the body found
there, for no other mummy has ever
been found within 100 miles OF this
lonely sepulcher.
At the rear of the cave the miners
found what appeared to be a chamber
in The solid granite wall. The mouth
Of he chamber was sealed. When the
cementlike substance was broken away
and a fiat stone lifted IL was found
that human mummy was within.
There was a smell of rosin and balsam
when the miners raised the little body
whicn had lain there for 500, perhaps
ZOO, years. The body was evidently
that of child, the offspring of prehis-
toric royalty. When the coverings had
been removed 1t was found that the
body was that of a girl about five
years of age.
There was no doubt that she was of
elaborate burial, instead of that of cre-
nation, had been for some cxtraor-
dinary reason. Wrappings that filled
five hushel baskets were unwound from
the remains AS the hands were re.
rOved peanuts and mesquite beans
rolled out. Both were in as good
ate of preservation as If they had
lcen placed there few months be.
fore. A child's plaything. a curious
lone affair was found placed between
the arms. The little shriveled hands
we're clasped about bits of mesquite
wood and thick mass of raven black
lair, much finer than that of an In.
dian, covered the head. The legs were
drawn up in the position of a child
creeping. The finger nails we're per-
feet and the teeth intact The nose.
ears and eyes we're gone and the skin
was broken on the right knee and one
Of the wrists, exposing bones. sinews
and dried flesh.
So fine a mummy had probably never
been found before in the valleys of
Arizona. Il has been photographed
more than a hundred times. Many
scientists and archdeologists have
travelled long distances to see it and
say that 1t is the most interesting and
instructive of all things found In that
part of the country in decade, It has
leen made gift to the Smithsonian
institution.