320 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



ably had been like that over the interior stairway of Temple 20 at 

 Copan, i. e., composed of successively higher sections of the typical 

 corbelled arch roof. The original height of Temple 4 is preserved to 

 within 6 inches at the top of this stairway, from which it may be esti- 

 mated to have been about 12 feet high. 



The specimens found, as is usually the case in temple excavations in 

 the Maya field, were rather meager: a clay-pipe, two shell rings, two 

 jade beads, parts of a very fine alabaster bowl covered with a brilliant 

 red paint almost like an enamel, parts of a human skull found in the 

 doorway of Temple 3, animal and bird bones, many obsidian flakes, a 

 number of broken pottery vessels, and two fragments of a vase showing 

 a band of hieroglyphs carved around the neck just below the rim. 



The ground-plans of the several temples in figure 1 show a general 

 similarity in the arrangement of chambers between Temples 1 and 3 

 on the one hand and Temples 4 and 5 on the other; Temples 2 and 6 

 being different, not only from either of these two pairs, but also from 

 each other. On the other hand, none of them contained large numbers 

 of chambers, like some buildings elsewhere in the Maya area — for 

 example, the Palace at Palenque or the Monjas at Uxmal; and it is 

 probable that all were used either as temples proper, i. e., places where 

 religious rites and ceremonies were carried on, or for administrative 

 purposes, such as councils, courts, and the like; and finally, probably 

 none of them were dwellings of rulers or priests, such as the Palenque 

 and Uxmal structures mentioned may have been. 



The date of erection of the Temple Plaza is not certain, although 

 Temple 2 is clearly the oldest of the six structures surrounding it. The 

 apparent correlation of Zoomorphs and P, 9.18.0.0.0 and 9.18.5.0.0, 

 respectively, with the northern extensions of the terrace of Temple 5, 

 might indicate that one or the other marks the completion of this part 

 of the group. The dedication of Temple 1, the only one of the six 

 buildings having sculptured decoration, and therefore probably the 

 latest, in 9.19.0.0.0, marks the end of sculptural as well as architectural 

 activity at Quirigua, this site (along with the other Old Empire cities 

 then occupied) probably having been abandoned not long thereafter. 



Two trips were made to the ruins of Copan, Honduras, one in Decem- 

 ber 1918, and the other in June 1919, to secure certain final data for a 

 monograph on the inscriptions of that city (Publication No. 219, now 

 in press) . During the course of the last visit, the mound of Stela 7, 

 where the most archaic monuments at Copan have been found, was 

 excavated, disclosing (among other things) a cruciform vault or cham- 

 ber underneath the foundation-stone of Stela 7, but no new monuments. 



Valuable information as to the original provenance of Stelse 15 and 

 7 and Altars V, M', T, and U was received from the three oldest 

 inhabitants of the modern village, an aged trio between 70 and 80 years 

 of age. The memory of these informants reaches back clearly to 1860; 



