86 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
STELA’ 15. 
Provenance: Found on the mound of Stela 7 (Group 9). Now in the 
cabildo. (See plate 3 and figure 22, s.) 
Date: 9.4.10.0.0 12 Ahau 8 Mol 
Text, (a) photograph: Morley, 1915, plate 13. 
Spinden, 1913, plate 23, 2. 
(b) drawing: plate 12. 
References: Morley, 1915, pp. 187, 188. 
Spinden, 1913, pp. 160, 163, 164, and table 1. 
The vicissitudes through which Stela 15 has passed during the last 
three-quarters of a century well illustrate what has happened to many of the 
monuments of Group 9, where the modern village now stands. 
When the writer first visited Copan in 1910 the two larger pieces of this 
monument (fragments 1 and 2) were built into the east wall of a house at 
the northwestern corner of the village plaza. (See figure 22, 4, and wu.) Infor- 
mation received then and in 1912 led to the discovery of a third and smaller 
piece (fragment 3) in 1915 (see figure 22, 7), and during the writer’s last visit 
additional data as to the history of this monument were secured. 
Mariano Madrid, the father of Jacobo Madrid, first came to Copan in 
1891, when he bought the property on the southern side of the plaza at the 
southwestern corner, from Anita Acevédo. (See figure 22, G.) At that 
time this property was surrounded by a stone wall, the only one of its kind 
in the village, which was still only an aldea or hamlet, the municipality not 
being organized until two years later.’ 
Jacobo Madrid states that fragments 1 and 2 were built into the founda- 
tions of the stone wall along the eastern side of this property at that time. 
(See figure 22,t.) Three or four years later (1894 or 1895) his father built the 
house at the northwestern corner of the plaza, and in order to secure large 
stones for the foundations of its adobe walls he tore down this stone wall and 
removed these two fragments to this other house, where the writer first saw 
them in 1910 (see figure 22, ~), whence they were subsequently removed 
to the cabildo in 1913. 
But Anita Acevédo was not the original owner of the property where 
these fragments were first described, nor was her husband, Juan Villeda, the 
builder of the stone wall where they were found. 
Maria Melendrez, one of the oldest inhabitants, states that Anita 
Acevédo bought this property from an Ana Carlos Orellano about 1865 
(7. e., when the informant was 16, being about 70 now) and that the stone 
wall was already built when she first remembers this place. 
Cristina Ramirez, the oldest inhabitant of the village, has recollections 
of still an earlier period. She states that as a child she was accustomed to go 


1The municipality of Copan was organized on January 1, 1893, by the following men: Teodoro Destephen, 
Indalecio Guerra (alealde), Emilio Cuellar (first regidor), Cristébal Melendez (second regidor), Mariano 
Madrid (sindico), and J. Manuel Collar (secretario interino), Guadelupe Lopez being the first regular secretary of 
the municipality. Teodoro Destephen and J. Manuel Collar were not residents of Copan, but signed the organiza- 
tion papers, the former in his capacity as commandante and the latter as secretario of Santa Rita, under the juris- 
diction of which Copan had been heretofore. 
