[from The Believer]
I tried to follow the explanations in Spanish on the typed index cards inside the cases: something about antediluvian animals, the possible influence of extraterrestrials, and the ancient, unidentified cultura Waldemar.
Then we arrived at the last and largest room. Here was what we had really come for: the dinosaur statues. A few hundred must have been in that one room. Most of the clay figurines were just a few inches tall, but some measured three feet. There were dinosaurs with crested backs, dinosaurs with ridged backs, dinosaurs with spiked backs, dinosaurs with wings, dinosaurs with two legs, dinosaurs with three legs, dinosaurs on their hind legs, dinosaurs with dog faces, dinosaurs with duck faces, dinosaurs with gargoyle faces. Flat dinosaurs, round dinosaurs, dimpled dinosaurs. There were dinosaurs eating humans. There were dinosaurs standing alongside humans. There were dinosaurs with humans mounted on their backs, and dinosaurs being caressed by humans. The collection was overwhelming. And this was only a fraction of the vast assembly that Waldemar Julsrud had discovered here in this little central Mexican town nearly seventy years ago.
AVI DAVIS 