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Location: Monument 33 was found inside a basalt column chamber by Angel Garcia C. of the gasoducto project in 1979, the chamber was dismantled and all its components moved to the site museum during the same year.
Associations: Basalt column Chamber, Monuments 34, 32 and 19.
Condition: Broken at one end.
Photographs: Present report, Plate 40.
Drawings: None.
Carved Areas: Sculpture in the round.
References: None
Carved Areas: Sculpture in the round.
Material: Green stone, possibly serpentine. Such stones are found in the region of Niltepec, though there are closer outcroppings of Paleozoic Metamorphic rock on the upper reaches of the Rio San Juan which flows less than 25 Km. from the site (Heizer and Williams 1965).
Dimensions: Height 90 cm, Diameter 32 cm.
Description: Monument 33 is a tenon column which is broken at one end and has a hammer dressed rounded tenon at the other end. One side of the column is flattened and bears an area of cross hachure.
Remarks: This stone was reportedly found set up in the central hole of Monument 34. The tenon at one end suggests that the sculpture was intended for such a positioning. Blom and la Farge describe a similar pair of sculptures from Piedra Labrada as follows, "Stela 1, was a monolith, 2.02 meters long, the lower 18 c.m. of which was shaped into a plug. This plug fitted a nearly circular hole in a square stone tablet lying close to the Stela. Undoubtedly the monument once stood upright, the square stone forming the base" (Blom and la Farge 1926:40). A more closely related tenon column "made of a hard, gritty, greenish-white stone...of remote sedimentary origin [was excavated by Stirling at La Venta] at the north base of the Cerro Encantado...This column is 7 feet 9 inches long. A groove passes completely around it about a foot from the top, and another about a foot from the bottom. The top terminates in a stem-like projection (pl. 45, b)" (Stirling 1943:60).
MONUMENT 34.
Location: Monument 34 was found inside a basalt column chamber by Angel Garcia C. of the gasoducto project in 1979, the chamber was dismantled and all its components moved to the site museum during the same year.
Associations: Basalt column Chamber, Monuments 33, 32, 19.
Condition: Well preserved.
Photographs: Present report, Plate 41.
Drawings: None.
References: None
Carved Areas: None
Material: This monument was found subsequent to Williams' work. However, there is nothing about it to suggest that its material is any different than that of Monument 1.
Dimensions: Height 25-17 cm, Width 167 cm, Depth 74 cm, Diameter of hole 42 cm.
Description: Monument 34 is a flat rectangular stone with a circular hole in the center. All six surfaces are well dressed, as are the sides of the central hole.
Remarks: Monument 34 was found with Monument 33 set up in its central hole. Similar paired sculptures were found at Piedra Labrada where the sculpture corresponding to Monument 22 is described as "1.04 x 1.23 x 0.55 meters, with an approximately circular cavity in the centre, 45 c.m. across and 35 c.m. deep" (Blom and la Farge 1926:41).
