316 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
and 4. The city was at last at the flood tide of its architectural and sculp- 
tural development, a period relatively comparable to those precious few 
years of Greek art when Scopas, Phidias, and Praxiteles wielded their magic 
chisels. 
Before taking up the monuments dating from 9.17.0.0.0, it is first 
necessary to describe Temple 22, which probably is to be referred to the eight 
years between 9.16.12.5.17 and 9.17.0.0.0. 
TEMPLE 22. 
Provenance: On the north side of and facing the Eastern Court at the 
Acropolis, Main Structure. (See plate 6.) 
Datey = 9.16.12.5.17 6 Caban to Mol to 9.17.0.0.0 13 Ahau 
18 Cumhu. 
Text, (a) photograph: Gordon, 1896, plate 3, figure 2; plate 4, figure 1. 
. Maudslay, 1889-1902, vol. 1, plates 13-15, 16, a, 17, c. 
Spinden, 1913, plate 3, 2. 
(b) drawing: Maudslay, ibid, plates 12, 16, D. 
References: Gordon, 1896, pp. 10, 17, 18. 
Maudslay, 1889-1902, vol. 1 of text, pp. 27-29. 
Spinden, 1913, pp. 162 and table 1. 
Temple 22 stands in the middle of the terrace on the north side of the 
Eastern Court. (See plate 6.) It was excavated in 1885 by Maudslay, 
and is unquestionably the most beautiful and elaborately sculptured building 
at Copan, if, indeed, not in the entire Maya area. 
Running clear across the front is a platform, the ends of which are 
carried out at right angles to the facade, as far as the base-line of the stair- 
way ascending the substructure upon which the temple proper is built. 
(See plate 6.) Two large grotesque heads and handsomely carved wing 
stones extend from the front wall of the temple to the edge of this platform 
on either side of the stairway. A doorway 2.74 meters wide leads into an 
outer gallery 10 meters long and 3.04 meters wide; at each end of which 
there is a doorway giving into a smaller interior chamber, each 6.09 meters 
long and 3.04 meters wide. 
The spectacular feature of Temple 22 is the doorway in the north or 
back wall of this outer gallery, which gives into the inner chamber or sanctu- 
ary proper. The doorway itself is rather narrow, about 1.83 meters wide, 
but the recess in the back wall, out of which it opens, is 4.5 meters wide. 
The sill of this recess and doorway are on the same level and are 61 cm. above 
the floor-level of the outer gallery. 
The upper part of the riser is a plain projecting sill, but the lower part 
is inscribed with two horizontal bands of glyph-blocks, which are divided by 
three death’s heads into four sections of 4 glyph-blocks each, or 16 in all; 
and as each glyph-block has 2 glyphs, there are 32 glyphs in the text. At 
each end of this step is a much larger death’s head, which projects beyond the 
riser of the step proper. ‘These serve as pedestals to support two crouching 
human figures of heroic size, which in turn support on their upraised 
hands the two heads of a reptilian monster, whose body curls upward in 
