Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/622

 thomas] MAUDSLAY'S ARCHEOLOGICAL WORK SS7

Parts of the cornice of the above-mentioned doorway, shown in Maudslay's PL 7, indicate very elaborate ornamentation, mingled with which, as on the step, are numerous hieroglyphs. In the western court of the same temple was found a cross with arms of equal length, the center occupied by a cross-legged human figure.

There was discovered a doorway of another temple (16) which also has the face of the entrance step ornamented with hiero- glyphics and masks, the ends being flanked by skeleton heads. Extending up the sides of the doorway and over the top is a series of carved figures, human and grotesque, worked into S-shape scrolls, the whole so carved as to represent an elongate arched human serpent, supported at each end by a stooping human form. It is probable, judging from the limited remains, that the doorway of temple No. 1 1 was similarly ornamented.

That they are symbolic will not be doubted. As the reader will doubtless recall like overarching forms both in native Ameri- can and in Oriental mythology, we shall not enter into a discussion of the subject here. It is desirable, however, to call attention to the strong resemblance of the dragon figure found at temple No. 11, above mentioned, to the figure in plates 4 and 5 of the Dresden Codex, best shown in Kingsborough's reproduction. This resemblance is strong enough to justify the belief that the figure was a conventionalized one among the tribes of Copan and in the locality where the Dresden Codex was made. What- ever may have been the idea symbolized by a human head issuing from or being held in the jaws of a reptilian monster, it must have prevailed throughout southern Mexico and all of Cen- tral America, in all parts of which the symbol is found, reaching its greatest development, though in rudest form, in Nicaragua.

As we cannot in a brief article allude to all of Mr Maudslay's discoveries at this place, we may say in general terms that those described are typical of the others. The great monoliths and altars are well known through Stephens' works and Catherwood's pencil ; but it was not until Mr Maudslay's photographs and

�� �