330 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
proved as clearly as here, where one of the monuments in question, Stela 
P, actually bears a date 150 years earlier than the earliest dated construction 
or temple in the immediate vicinity. 
After 9.17.5.0.0 the scene of principal sculptural activity shifted away 
from the Eastern and Western Courts of the Acropolis back to the Great 
Plaza of the Main Structure and also to Old Copan (Group g), both of which 
next became the two chief centers for sculptural embellishment in the valley. 
ALTAR W’. 
Provenance: At Group 6, 1 kilometer east of the Main Structure on 
; the west bank of the Copan River. 
Date: g.17.5.0.0 6 Ahau 13 Kayab.} 
Text, drawing: figure 46. 
Reference: Morley, 1917c, pp. 286, 287. 
Altar W’ lies in a small court surrounded by the remains of stone build- 
ings, 1 kilometer east of the Main Structure, on the west bank of the river. 
It is 94 cm. long, 44 cm. wide, and 37 cm. high. The front, back, and sides 
are sculptured, the top and bottom being plain. The surrounding buildings 
were built of squared dressed blocks, and there are a number of sculptured 
fragments lying on the slopes of the substructures. It is evident from the 
latter that this group was of no small importance, and that it was hand- 
somely embellished with sculptural mosaics, particularly the temple on the 
south side. ‘The floor of the court has been silted in to the depth of a third 
of a meter since the city was abandoned by some former overflow of the 
river nearby, and it was in this alluvial deposit that Altar W’ was found 
by the First Peabody Museum Expedition in 1891-92, buried in such a way 
that only its front surface was exposed. This was photographed,’ but no 
record of its provenance seems to have been kept or any mention made of its 
discovery, nor of the fact that its back and sides were inscribed with glyphs. 
Indeed, judging from the undisturbed appearance of the altar when first 
seen by the writer in May 1917, it seems highly probable that the latter 
fact had been entirely overlooked when the front was photographed in 1892. 
The altar, as found in 1917, lay front up, embedded in the earth to 
within a centimeter of the top of the block. ‘The exposed surface was 
sculptured with a representation of the two-headed dragon, the uinal head 
being at the left and the head of the Long Nose God, God B of the Schell- 
has classification at the right. (See figure 46, a.) This face, as already 
noted, was not the original top of the monument, but its front. Digging 
along the sides to free it from the earth in which it lay buried, it was found 
that the two ends were inscribed with glyphs, and when the whole monument 
was excavated it was found that the back also had been similarly treated. 
Facing the altar, the inscription begins on the right end, passes thence 
across the back, and finishes on the left end, figure 46, b, d, andc, respectively. 
1 For other monuments recording this same hotun-ending, see Appendix VIII. 
2 See photograph No. 107, in the Peabody Museum files. 
