78 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
STELA 24. 
Provenance: Original position unknown. Found in the foundations 
of Stela 7 (Group 9). Nowinthe cabildo. (See plate 3, 
and figures 12, 5, and 22, q.) 
Date: g.2.10.0.0 3 Ahau 8 Cumhu. 
Text, drawing: figure 13. 
With Stela 24 we reach at last firm chronological ground, this being the 
earliest monument at Copan the date of which has been surely deciphered. 
Only a single piece has been found, probably not more than a quarter of the 
original monument, although possibly as much as a third of the sculptured 
part. The fragment recovered is 61 cm. high, 73 cm. wide, and 29 cm. thick. 
The front and back are sculptured with glyphs, the two sides being plain, 
though dressed smooth. 
This arrangement of the design is a step beyond that seen in Stele 22 
and 25 (Class 1), where only one face, 7. ¢., the front, is sculptured with glyphs, 
the remaining three faces being left plain; and somewhat less advanced 
than Stela 20 (Class 3), where all four faces are sculptured. On the basis of 
arrangement, therefore, Stela 24 may be assigned to a new class, 2. 
The circumstances surrounding the discovery of this fragment are of 
especial interest because of its unusual importance, already noted, no less 
than that of presenting the earliest date yet deciphered at Copan about 
which there can be no doubt. 
In August 1916 the writer received a letter from Copan stating that a 
“piece of stone inscribed with hieroglyphics” had been found recently during 
the course of some excavations in the village; but it was not until May of 
the following year that he had an opportunity of examining this fragment 
at first hand, and of ascertaining the circumstances which surrounded its 
discovery. 
During the early part of the summer of 1916, Clementino Lopez, living 
near the southwestern corner of the village plaza (see figure 22, F), was dig- 
ging a well in the yard behind his house, and required some stone with which 
to line it. In the middle of this yard there is a low mound of earth and stone 
70 cm. high, 27 meters long north and south, and 17 meters wide east and 
west, near the eastern edge of which Maudslay had found Stela 7 lying in 
1885.! (See figure 18, b.) Lopez had dug into this mound for stone to line 
his well, and at a depth of about half a meter below the surface he found a 
pila or cylindrical altar with a depression in its top (figure 12, d). This is 
46 cm. high, 56 cm. in diameter at the top, and tapers toward the bottom, 
being 39 cm. in diameter at the base. 
Just below this altar was found the fragment of Stela 24 shown in figure 
13 (for its position, see figure 12, b), which in turn rested directly upon a 
large, plain-rectangular slab of stone 1.62 meters long (north and south), 
g6 cm. wide (east and west), and 29 cm. thick (figure 12, a). Above this 
slab and closely packed in around the altar and stela-fragment were many 
1See pp. 102, 103. 
