Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/621

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��AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

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��in the entire ruins, so far as they have been examined, has any- thing indicative of war or strife — unless the condition of the ruins furnish it — been found. The city was probably a religious center. The figures may be symbolic, and those on the step, numbering twenty, might be supposed to represent the twenty days of the month or twenty of the periods called by Mr Goodman " ahaus " — the 360-day period or third order of units. The fact that there are only sixteen on the altar might seem to controvert this sugges- tion, but it is a fact that, although it takes twenty of the 360-day periods to make the next higher period, in the representation of these on Stela J of the same locality but sixteen are given. This at best is but a mere suggestion, yet in favor of the supposition that they may represent the days, the breast-plate of one of the figures bears clearly and distinctively the symbol of the day Ik. Be this as it may, it becomes more and more apparent, the more we study the inscriptions, that they contain nothing historic, and are to a very large degree symbolic, time counts being the lead- ing subject.

We notice in regard to Mr Maudslay's figures of this step that in the autotype PL 8 the ten personages on the right half are all shown, some, it is true, being imperfect in lacking certain por- tions of the body, but all the figures are there ; while in the auto- type PL ja> showing one side of the doorway, including the right half of the step, the third and fourth figures (counting from the middle toward the right) are entirely wanting, the photograph apparently showing a break or scaling here in the stone.

Although the figures may, as suggested, be symbolic, yet there is such a strongly marked facial type as to render it probable that the artist drew in part at least from life. Judging by the skeleton head at one end of the step and the tail-piece at the other, the portion on which the figures are carved is to be regarded as the body of the animal or monster. Another step of this temple shows an animal, or rather dragon form, apparently of the saurian type.

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