These altars are strongly suggestive of sacrificial scenes. The altar before the idol found in the court-yard on the terrace of the temple, is one of the most interesting objects found at Copan. It is six feet square and four feet high. The top is divided into thirty-six tablets of hieroglyphics which we may well imagine records some events in the history of this mysterious people. Each side has carved on it four human figures. They are generally all represented as facing the same way. We give an illustration of the east side. Each individual is sitting cross-legged on a hieroglyphic, and has a ponderous head-dress.
Mr Stephens found the quadrangle at the south-east corner of the plan to be thickly strewn with fragments of fine sculpture. Amongst the rest was a “remarkable portrait.” (Shown later.) “It is probably the portrait of some king, chieftain, or sage. The mouth is injured, and part of the ornament over the wreath that crowns the head. The expression is noble and severe, and the whole character shows a close imitation of nature.” Colonel Gallindo, who visited Copan in 1835, discovered a vault very near where the circular towers are located, on the terrace fronting the river. This vault was five feet wide, ten feet long, and four feet high. It was used for burial purposes. Over fifty vessels of red pottery, containing human bones, were found in it.3
In this hasty sketch we do not feel that we have done justice to Copan. It is, however, all the space we can devote to this interesting ruin. We call special attention to the hieroglyphics on the altar and the statues. We will find other hieroglyphics at Palenque, and in Yucatan, evidently derived from these.4 They have been made the subject of very interesting study, and we will refer to them again at another page. We also notice especially the fact that we have no ruined buildings at Copan. In this respect it stands almost alone among the Central American ruins. The distinguishing features, however, are the carved obelisks. They are evidently not the work of rude, people. Mr. Stephens, who was every way qualified to judge, declares that some of them “are in every way equal to the finest Egyptian workmanship, and that with the best instruments of modern times, it would be impossible to cut stone more perfectly.”
A dark mystery hangs over these ruins. Their builders are unknown. Whether we have here some temple sacred to the gods of the Maya pantheon or some palace made resplendent for royal owners, who can tell? Whether these are the ruins of the more substantial public buildings of a great city, of which all other buildings have vanished—or whether this is the remains of a prosperous pueblo, whose communal houses crowded the terraces, with sacrificial altars on the lofty pyramids—who knows? At long intervals a passing traveler visits them, ponders over their fast disappearing ruins, and goes his way. The veil drops, the tropical forest more securely environs them—and thus the years come and go over the ruins of Copan.