METHOD OF TREATMENT. 51 
time. Throughout the greater part of the Old Empire they were set up at 
intervals of 1,800 days, in the different cities, and may perhaps be likened 
to 5-year almanacs, setting forth the principal astronomical or historical 
events of the preceding 5-year period. 
The altars, on the other hand, rarely appear to have been thus used, 
except toward the end of the Great Period. They are usually associated 
with stele, standing in front of them, although occasionally independent 
altars are found. As suggested above, it is possible that they are altars in 
the truest sense of the word—places where sacrifices were offered in front 
of and to the stele. 
Inscriptions are also found on architectural members, such as stairways, 
steps, door-jambs, lintels, cornices, wall-panels (both exterior and interior), 
and columns, the two types of monuments described, however, being suffi- 
ciently elastic to include all the detached inscribed stones. 
In selecting the illustrations for this work, the principal object the writer 
has kept in view has been to use chiefly unpublished material; that is, to 
figure such texts as are accessible nowhere else. With the illustrations 
given in this work, and those already published by Maudslay and by the 
Peabody Museum, reproductions of practically all the Copan inscriptions 
are now accessible—certainly all the chronological portions—with but one 
notable exception, namely, the Hieroglyphic Stairway of Mound 26. This 
lengthy text, the longest known in the Corpus Inscriptionum Mayarum, 
is unfortunately in too fragmentary a condition to permit anything 
approaching its complete reassemblage. An analysis of the chronological 
parts, however, has been attempted in Chapter IV, pages 237-274. 
The urgency of placing on record reproductions of all the Copan inscrip- 
tions is pressing. Several of the monuments have been destroyed in the 
past decade, indeed within the past 4 years, and further irreparable losses 
may occur at any time. With the publication of the present volume, how- 
ever, a part at least of every text now known at Copan will be accessible to 
the student, and in most cases reproductions of all the chronological glyphs 
will have been published. 
In many cases photographs only are figured; in more, the reproductions 
are from drawings of the originals; and in a few, both drawings and photo- 
graphs of the same text are given. 
Some of the photographs used have been loaned by the Peabody 
Museum, for which the writer wishes to express his thanks. ‘The remaining 
photographs, except that of the painting of Copan by Vierra (plate 33), 
were taken by the Carnegie Institution Central American Expeditions of 
1915 and 1916. The Vierra painting is reproduced through the courtesy 
of the Museum of San Diego, San Diego, California, where the original is 
on exhibition. 

1In 1912 Stel 8 and 9 were broken up for use in the foundations of a wall then being built around the village 
cemetery, and in 1916 Altars L’ and M’ were smashed into small pieces for use in the foundations of the new 
village church. 
