Sandaled feet at Copan.
STATUES OR IDOLS.
SCULPTURED OBELISK.
Next to the ruined Temple in importance, or even before it as an indication of the artistic skill of its builders, are the carved obelisks, statues, or idols, which are peculiar to this region, but remarkably similar to each other. Fourteen of these are more or less fully described, most of them standing and in good preservation, but several of this number, and probably many besides, fallen and broken. Their positions are shown on the plan by the numbers 1 to 14. It will be noticed that only one is actually within the structure known as the Temple, three standing at the foot of its outer terrace within the quadrangle H, and the remainder in a group at the southern part of the enclosure, two of the latter being at the foot of terraced walls. These statues are remarkable for their size and for their complicated and well-executed sculpture. Of the eight whose dimensions are given, the smallest, No. 13, is eleven feet eight inches high, three feet four inches wide and thick; and the largest, Nos. 2 and 3, are thirteen feet high, four feet wide, and three feet thick. The material is the same soft stone taken from the quarry which furnished the blocks for building the walls. As to their position, Nos. 3, 11, and 13 face toward the east; Nos. 1, 5, and 9, toward the west; and No. 10 toward the north; the others are either fallen or their position is not given. No. 1 is smaller at the bottom than at the top, and Col. Galindo mentions two others, on hills east and west of the city, which have a similar form; all the rest are of nearly uniform dimensions throughout their length. Several rest on pedestals from six to seven feet square, and No. 13 has also a circular stone foundation sixteen feet in diameter. In each a human face occupies a central position on the front, having in some instances something that may be intended to represent a beard and moustache. The faces are remarkably uniform in the expression of their features, generally calm and pleasant; but in the case of No. 11 the partially open lips, and eye-balls starting from their sockets, indicate a design on the part of the artist to inspire terror in the beholder of his work. The hands rest in nearly every instance back to back on the breast. The dress and decoration seem to indicate that some were intended for males, others for females; this and the presence or absence of beard are the only indications of sex observable. The feet are mostly dressed in sandals, as shown clearly in the cut from No. 7. Above and round the head is a complicated mass of the most elaborate ornamentation, which utterly defies verbal description. Mr Stephens notes something like an elephant's trunk among the decorations of No. 8. The sides and usually the backs are covered with hieroglyphics arranged in square tablets, which probably contain, as all observers are impelled to believe, the names, titles, and perhaps history of the beings whose images in stone they serve to decorate. The backs of several, however, have other figures in addition to the supposed hieroglyphics, as in No. 8, where is a human form sitting cross-legged; and in No. 10, in which the characters seem to be human in a variety of strange contortions, although arranged in tablets like the rest; and No. 13 has a human face in the centre of the back as well as front. The sculpture is all in high relief, and was originally painted red, traces of the color being well preserved in places protected from the action of the weather. I give cuts of two of these carved obelisks, Nos. 3, and 6, to illustrate as fully as possible the general appearance of these most wonderful creations of American art, the details and full beauties of which can only be appreciated in the large and finely engraved plates of Catherwood.
Copan Statues.—No. 3.