Hieroglyphics on the Copan Altar.
Decorated Head at Copan.
Death's Head at Copan.
MISCELLANEOUS RELICS.
The head shown in the cut is one of the fragments lying on the ground at the foot of the terraces that inclose the quadrangle H. On the slopes of these terraces, particularly of the eastern slope of the pyramid e, half-way from top to bottom, are rows of death's heads in stone. It is suggested that they represent the skulls of apes rather than of human beings, and that this animal, abundant in the country, may have been an object of veneration among the ancient people. One of the skulls is shown in the cut. The next cut pictures the head of an alligator carved in stone, found among the group of idols towards the south. Another is mentioned by Col. Galindo, as holding in its open jaws a figure, half human, half beast. A gigantic toad, standing erect, with human arms and tiger's claws, was another of the relics discovered by the same explorer, together with round plain stones pierced by a hole in the centre. Mr Davis talks of an architrave of black granite finely cut; and M. Waldeck corrects a statement, in a work by Balbi, that marble beds are to be found here. The portrait in the cut is from the fragments found at the north-west corner of the temple near b.[III-28]