PREFACE. Vil 
Yale University, Dr. R. K. Morley of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dr. 
Charles Peabody of Phillips Academy, Andover, Professor Marshall Saville 
of the Museum of the American Indian, and Dr. J. W. Fewkes of the Bureau 
of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution. 
In addition to the foregoing, the writer finds himself indebted for much 
practical help in Central America, to various officials of the United Fruit 
Company, without which the difficulties of actual field-work, traveling- 
facilities, living-quarters, labor, etc. would have been enormously increased. 
He is under especial obligation in this respect to Mr. G. M. Shaw, manager of 
the Guatemala division of the United Fruit Company, to Mr. Alfred Clark, 
general manager of the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Centro America, to Dr. 
N. P. MacPhail in charge of the Quirigua Hospital and to Mr. M. D. Lan- 
dry, superintendent of the Quirigua district. 
To Mr. Rafael Levy of L. Leon Lowe and Co. of Zacapa, Guatemala, 
“the Gateway of Copan,” thanks are also due for having, on numerous occa- 
sions, provided mule-trains for reaching Copan, no inconsiderable service in a 
land where all travel is by means of that faithful animal. 
Finally to his many friends at the village of Copan, Don Juan Ramon 
Cuevas, Don Rafael, Don Porfirio, and Don José Villamil, Don Clementino 
Lépez, Don Jacobo Madrid, Don Carlos Martinez and Dona Julia Zuniga 
-whose kindly help and unfailing courtesy have greatly facilitated the writer’s 
studies at the ruins, and particularly to Arnulfo Martinez, his youthful 
assistant at Copan, as well as to those many other small citizens of the 
village, whose nimble wits and sharp eyes have ferreted out hitherto unknown 
texts in various parts of the valley, his gratitude should also be expressed. 
The pleasant associations thus formed with the villagers during the past 
decade received more formal expression during the writer’s last visit to 
Copan in June 1919, when at the session of the cabildo for June 2 he was 
elected a citizen of the Municipality for which honor he is deeply appreciative. 
This volume treats primarily of the hieroglyphic inscriptions at the ruins 
of Copan in western Honduras, the southern metropolis of the Old Maya 
Empire. To the general reader, interested principally in the larger aspects 
of this investigation, such as the background of the research and the con- 
clusions reached, Chapters I and V are especially commended. Chapters 
II, III, and IV deal with the detailed examination of the different monu- 
ments and are more technical in nature. 
Special phases of the subject will be found in the appendices. In IV, 
V,and XI are early descriptions of Copan (1576, 1689, and 1834 respectively). 
In IJ, III, LX, and X, are tabular and other data relating to the Copan 
inscriptions and monuments; VI and VII contain descriptions of the Supple- 
mentary Series and the hotun respectively, subjects extensively treated in 
almost all of the Old Empire texts. 
