Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/584

 548 THE RUINS OF COPAN. nearly shut, and the lower features distorted ; the back of the head is symmetrically perforated by holes ; the whole is of most exquisite workmanship, and cut out or cast from a fine stone covered with green enamel, as are also two heads I found in the vault : with quantities of oyster and periwinkle shells, brought from the sea-shore in fulfilment of some super- stition ; as also there were stalactites, taken from some cave. All the bottom of the vault was strewed with fragments of bones, and beneath these a coat of lime on a solid stone floor. There are seven obelisks still standing and entire, in the temple and its immediate vicinity ; and there are numerous others, fallen and destroyed, throughout the ruins of the city. These stone columns are ten or eleven feet high, and about three broad, with a less thickness ; on one side were worked, in basso-i'ilievo, human figures, standing square to the front, with their hands resting on their breast ; they are dressed with caps on their heads, and sandals on their feet, and clothed in highly adorned garments, generally reaching half way down the thigh, but sometimes in long pantaloons. Opposite this figure, at a distance of three or four yards, was commonly placed a stone table or altar. The back and sides of the obelisk generally contain phonetic hieroglyphics in squares. Hard and fine stones are inserted in many obelisks, as they, as well as the rest of the works in the ruins, are of a species of soft stone, which is found in a neighbouring and most extensive quarry. There is one very remarkable stone table in the temple, two feet four inches high, and four feet ten inches square : its top contains forty -nine square tablets of hieroglyphics; and its four sides are occupied by sixteen human figures in basso- rilievo, sitting cross-legged on cushions carved in the stone, and bearing each in their hands something like a fan or flapper. Monstrous figures are found amongst the ruins ; one repre- sents the colossal head of an alligator, having in its jaws a figure with a human face, but the paws of an animal ; another monster has the appearance of a gigantic toad in an erect posture, with human arms and tiger's claws. On neighbouring hills stand, one to the east and the other to the west of the city, two obelisks, containing hieroglyphics alone in squares ; these obelisks (like the generality of those in the city) are painted red, and are thicker and broader at