60 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
village. He was the first to call attention to them, and was then of the 
opinion that all four were parts of the same monument, to which he gave 
the name Stela 16.1. When the writer visited Copan in 1915, he gave these 
fragments a close examination, and by means of exact measurements, as well 
as a comparative study of their subject-matter, it was possible to prove that, 
instead of being parts of one and the same monument, at least three different 
monuments are represented here, fragments of two stele, 18 and 20, and one 
altar, Q’, two of the four fragments possibly belonging to the last. Because 
of the great importance of these monuments, particularly of Stela 20, which 
is probably the oldest stela now extant at Copan, and of Stela 18, which 
Spinden believes to be the first attempt to portray the human figure in front 
presentation at Copan, special efforts were made to ascertain their Cn 
provenance. 
The house of Domingo Hernandez was built in 1897 by Jacobo Madrid, 
who gives the following information about these sculptured pieces. He 
states that he himself carried all four of them, together with several other 
large unsculptured blocks and smaller sculptured pieces,” from the mound of 
Stela 7 (see figure 22) to their present position in order to use them in the 
walls of the house, as well as in the foundation of a low wall along the back 
corridor. 
This house was sold by Madrid in rgot to Siriaco Ard6n, who sold it the 
same year to Cristobal Melendez. From Melendez’s hands it passed to 
Clementino Lopez in 1903, thence to Manuel Sagastume in 1906, thence to 
Antonio Guerra in 1909, and finally to Domingo Hernandez, the present 
owner, in 1917. It has seemed advisable to give the history of this house in 
detail, so that future students will have no difficulty in tracing the pedigree 
of these highly important fragments and in establishing their eee 
provenance as the mound of Stela 7. 
Of the two pieces probably belonging to Altar Q’, the first is 91 cm. long 
and 39 cm. thick. In facing it, the left side presents a broken edge, and it 
is therefore impossible to give the original width. The present maximum 
width is 58 cm. ‘The top is very badly mutilated, most of the relief having 
scaled off. Traces of an interlacingof diagonalbands = appear in one 
place. The bottom and preserved side are dressed, L but not carved. 
The destroyed side was probably also plain. > 
The second fragment (see figure 6) shows this same treatment, 7. ¢., 
top sculptured, the bottom and back dressed but plain. It is 86 cm. wide 
and 40 cm. thick. The front and both ends are broken off, the present 
maximum height being 67 cm. The top of this second fragment is divided 
into three panels by two vertical bands which pass over the top from front 
to back, overlying the horizontal bands along the edges. (See top of figure 6.) 
The two lateral panels are incomplete. Both present the same subject, 
however, as Altars J’, K’, L’, and M’, namely, a large, grotesque serpent 

1 Spinden, 1913, table r. 2One of the two pieces of Stela 25 and Fragment V’ 1. 
