Copan Statues.—No. 6.
Copan Altar.—No. 10.
SACRIFICIAL ALTARS.
Standing from six to twelve feet in front of nine of the fourteen statues, and probably of all in their primitive state, are found blocks of stone which, apparently, can only have been employed for making offerings or sacrifices in honor of the statues, whose use as idols is rendered nearly certain by the uniform proximity of the altars. The altars are six or seven feet square and four feet high, taking a variety of forms, and being covered with sculpture somewhat less elaborate than the statues themselves, often buried and much defaced. Two of them, belonging to Nos. 10 and 7, are shown in the accompanying cuts. The former is five and a half feet in diameter, and three feet high, with two grooves in the top; the latter seven feet square and four feet high, supposed to represent a death's head. The top of the altar accompanying No. 9 is carved to represent the back of a tortoise; that of No. 13 consists of three heads strangely grouped. The grooves cut in the altars' upper surface are strongly suggestive of flowing blood, and of slaughtered victims.[III-24]
Copan Altar.—No. 7.