INSCRIPTIONS OF THE EARLY PERIOD. 55 
There are 22 monuments! now known which may be assigned to the Early 
Period at Copan; and this number will doubtless be increased by further 
excavation. In the very nature of the case, the earliest monuments are the 
most deeply buried and are also those which suffered secondary usage the 
most extensively. 
Already in ancient times the practice of reusing earlier monuments in 
later constructions was prevalent. This seems to have been begun as early as 
Katun 9, 1. ¢., at the end of the Early Period, when part of Stela 24 was 
reused in the foundations of Stela 7, and was common throughout the Middle 
and Great Periods. It is particularly true in the case of the so-called banded 
altars, the only type of altar yet found, in the Early Period. These were 
repeatedly reused in the foundations of later monuments, as, for example, 
Altars J’ and K’ in the foundations of Stela 10, Altar X in the foundations 
of Stela 5, Altar Y in the foundations of Stela 4, and Altar A’ in the Hiero- 
glyphic Stairway of Mound 26. This practice, however, was not confined to 
the smaller monuments alone. ‘Thus, for example, in addition to the case 
of Stela 24 just noted, Gordon reports? that Owens found Stela 9 had been 
reused in the foundations of Stela 8, the former being a very early monument 
(9.6.10.0.0), and the latter a very late one (9.17.12.6.2). Again, the archaic 
stela, No. 17, found by Morris in 1912, had been reshaped into a building- 
block in such a way that part of the original design has disappeared. (See 
plate 11,a and b.) And in 1916, during the demolition of the mound at the 
southeastern corner of the village plaza for building material, part of the top 
of an archaic stela—No. 21—was found, which had been made over into a 
building-block in ancient times, all of the inscription being destroyed save 
only parts of three Initial Series introducing glyphs. (See figure 14.) 
During the excavation of Mound 9g at the Main Structure, a small slab 
of stone, Fragment S’, which had glyphs on the under side, was uncovered 
in the pavement on the eastern slope. It had obviously been reshaped for 
this secondary purpose and part of the inscription was missing. (See figure 
21.) Doubtless complete excavation of the site would bring to light other 
building-blocks showing similar secondary usage. As the city grew, the 
earliest monuments probably passed out of fashion—became obsolete as it 
were—and thus, having outlasted the purposes for which they were originally 
designed, and being in every case exceptionally good blocks of stone, they 
were occasionally reused in later constructions. 
The earliest monuments at Copan are Altars J’, K’, L’, M’, P’, and Q’, 
and Stele 20, 22, 24, and 25. Unfortunately, none but the next to last 
(Stela 24) has been surely dated; and two, Altars J’ and K’, do not have any 
glyphs at all. Of these earliest altars, all but one, P’, have the same design, 
1This does not include the altar of Stela E, since, as will appear later (pp. 109-114); its inscription is only a 
continuation of the text presented on the stela with which it is associated, and it is therefore to be considered as an 
/ 
integral part of that monument. The above total also takes no account of the several Fragments V’, and Fragment 
S’. since the former almost certainly belong to one or other of the several fragmentary stele and altars, which were 
“/ * . . . i P f 
found in their immediate vicinity, and which are already included in the above total. A list of the monuments 
which may be referred to the Early Period, with their provenance, is given in Appendix IX. 
2Gordon, 1896, p. 38. 

