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Location: Monument 12 was discovered by Stirling during the 1938-39 field season "near the top of one of the mounds of the Burnt Mounds Group...projecting [from the surface?] (Stirling 1943:24). Monument 12 was moved to the site museum at its dedication in 1975.
Associations: None recorded.
Condition: Poorly preserved.
Photographs: Present report, Plate 20; Stirling 1943a: Plate 10c.
Drawings: None.
References: Stirling 1943a; de la Fuente 1973.
Carved Areas: Sculpture in the round.
Material: This monument was not tested by Williams. However, there is nothing about it to suggest that its material is any different than that of Monument 1.
Dimensions: Height 66 cm, Width 33 cm, Depth 25 cm.
Description: Monument 12 is a primitive "pot belly" sculpture with a flat back and an unusually large head. It consists of a roughly ovoid mass, deeply indented to represent a neck which divides the mass into two somewhat globular volumes. The upper volume, the head, is only slightly smaller than the larger, the swelling body. The arms are represented as two sharply bent, very low relief bands with undifferentiated hands resting on the belly. Though the sculpture is badly damaged and eroded, there were probably short incipient legs. The face and the hands have completely exfoliated.
Remarks: The flat back of Monument 12 is a feature which it shares with both primitive and more advanced "pot belly" sculptures from the southern Guatemalan sites of Kaminaljuyu and Abaj Takalik. Often primitive versions of "pot belly" sculptures have larger than natural heads, however, Monument 12 has an even larger head than normal. Perhaps this exceptionally large head was intended to represent an outsized mask worn over the face.
