INSCRIPTIONS OF THE EARLY PERIOD. 105 
ern end of the mound, failed to disclose this lower pavement. (See the 
heavy dotted line in figure 18.) Below this is a third layer of small 
broken pieces of volcanic tuff (figure 19, g) like b and d, which is 10 cm. 
deep and rests directly on the undisturbed earth of the valley bottom. 
The upper 18 cm. of this (figure 19, /) is a thick, pasty, black-brown clay 
generally free from stones, and below this, as deep as the excavations were 
carried, another meter, the same clay continued, but thickly interspersed 
with rocks of volcanic origin, light green, red, brown, and yellow in color 
(figure 19, 7). 
At the northwest corner of the mound was a stone platform (figure 18, c) 
7 meters long east and west and 6 meters wide north and south, resting on the 
level of the lower pavement but not rising above the general level of the 
mound. At ¢, figure 18, 1.5 meters south of this platform, was found a cache 
of three pieces of worked jade about 7 or 8 cm. below the level of the surface. 
One of these is very beautifully carved and represents a human figure 
in profile 7.5 cm. high, with a hole running through from side to side, so that 
it could be worn as a pendant. The other two pieces were halves of the same 
pebble, which first had had a small cylinder reamed out of it, probably to 
be worked into an ear ornament, and the pebble itself was then sawn in half. 
Referring to figure 19, the relation of Stela 7 to this mound is shown 
graphically. ‘The stela rests directly on the foundation-stone already men- 
tioned, which in turn is the top or cap of a small chamber built beneath it. 
This chamber is cruciform in plan, each passage being 76 cm. long, 46 cm. 
wide, and 77 cm. high. The sides and floor are built of squared blocks of 
stone and the latter rests directly on the undisturbed soil of the valley floor. 
Clementino Lopez broke into this chamber from the north side in 1916 
and removed the following objects: 
. A sea-shell (Arca grandis Broderip). 
. A stone weight with a hole through it. 
. An obsidian spearhead about 18 cm. long. 
. Another of the same material, only slightly longer. 
. An obsidian knife about 15 cm. long. 
To these should be added a sixth object (Fragment V’ 14, see figure 20, h) 
found by the writer in 1919 at f, figure 18, in the southeastern corner of the 
east-and-west passage of this chamber. (See also figure 19.) This is a 
small, irregular-shaped fragment of an archaic stela not more than 8 cm. in 
any dimension. One surface shows part of a glyph painted a bright ver- 
million. All of these objects, except No. 4, which was lost, are now in the 
Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
This deposit or cache under Stela 7 is the earliest example of its kind 
yet discovered at Copan. Such chambers occur in the Middle Period under 
Stele 1 and I (pp. 161, 162, and 177, 178 respectively), and the practice 
was continued down to the very end of the Great Period, chambers being 
found under the foundations of Stele M, C, and 4 (pp. 278, 346, and 356 
respectively). 
map wW DN 
