INSCRIPTIONS OF THE EARLY PERIOD. 95 
introducing glyphs on the two fronts appear to have been the same grotesque 
head.’ Again, the element preceding the day-sign of the Initial Series 
terminal date in Bs on Stela 9, €¢{2Q2 is almost exactly the same as the 
element (2208 preceding the day-sign of a date in co, p6 on Stela 15. 
Finally, in treatment, 7. ¢., having all four sides inscribed with glyphs 
(Class 3), the two monuments are identical. All these close similarities can 
not be the result of chance and are to be explained only on the grounds that 
both monuments date from the same general period and are the work of the 
same school, and possibly, as suggested, even of the same hand. 


STELA’ 21. 
Provenance: Original position unknown. Found in the center of the 
mound at the southeastern corner of the village plaza 
(Group 9). Now in the cabildo. (See plate 3 and 
figure 22, k). 
Date: eee g Ahau 3 Uayeb to 9.7.0.0.0 7 Ahau 3 Kan- 
in. 
Text, (a) photograph: plate 9, c, d, e. 
(b) drawing: figure 14. 
While the writer was at Copan in March 1916, the villagers were demol- 
ishing the mound at the southeastern corner of the village plaza, on top of 
which Altar S was found (see p. 226), in order to secure paving-stones for the 
streets. During the course of this work a fragment of an archaic stela was 
found buried in the hearting of the mound, to which the number 21 was 
given. (See figure 22, 2.) This fragment measures 32 cm. high, 37 cm. 
wide, and 35 cm. thick. From the subject-matter presented on its three 
sculptured faces it is possible to estimate its original width as having been 
74cm. It is part of the top of an archaic stela which was originally sculp- 
tured on four sides with glyphs like Stele 20, 15, and 9g (see plate 9, c, d, e, 
and figure 14) and on the basis of the arrangement of the design, therefore, it 

Yj 
“7 
y Y 
Wij MVV3; 
YMA 
Ses 

ZT ERS J 
Fic. 14.—Inscription on front, back, and one side of Stela 21. 
may be assigned to Class 3. At some later time it had been broken up into 
pieces, and the only fragment recovered shows that it had been used again as 
a building-block; in the reshaping necessary for this purpose, the glyph or 
glyphs on one side and part of those on the front and back were broken off.’ 
Three Initial Series introducing glyphs, two of which are not even 
complete, are all that is now preserved of the inscription. (See figure 14.) 



1This element on Stela 15 is partially effaced. 
2Since there is an Initial Series introducing glyph on the preserved narrow face as well as upon the front and 
back, it is practically certain that there must have been one on the destroyed narrow face also, as in the case of 
Stele 15 and 9. 
