346 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
Stela C stood in the center of the Great Plaza at the Main Structure; it is 
now fallen and broken into several large fragments.! The lower half is in 
situ; and the upper half, broken into two large pieces, now lies nearby. 
Human figures of heroic size are carved on the east and west faces of the stela, 
the north and south sides having a single panel of glyph-blocks, 15 on each 
side or 30 for the entire text. On the basis of this arrangement of the design, 
Stela C may be assigned to Class 6. The relief is very high, in some cases 
projecting as much as 8 cm. from the plane of the back of the glyph-panel. 
Traces of red and yellow paint still adhere to the surface of the stone in 
protected places. 
One of the Peabody Museum Expeditions excavated around the base 
of this monument and brought to light another cruciform chamber like 
those found beneath Stele 7,1, 1, and M. (See pp. 103-105, 161, 162, 177, 
178, 278). It contained only three pieces of rough unpainted pottery, how- 
ever; nothing as compared with the elaborate caches found in the chambers 
below Stele 1 and M,? and in front of Stela I. 
The inscription probably begins on the south side, although both glyph- 
panels start with Initial Series introducing glyphs. As will appear later, 
neither is followed by an Initial Series, nor indeed is one recorded upon this 
monument. 
The introducing glyph on the south side, a1, is regular, except for the 
comb-like lateral appendages, which are here replaced by a pair of fishes. 
- This variant has already been pointed out in connection with the Initial 
Series introducing glyph on Stela D (p. 232), where it was suggested the fish 
may have been the original life-form from which the comb-like lateral 
appendage was derived.* Following in a2a is a glyph composed of the 
head-variant for the cycle-sign, surmounted by a hand holding a small rod, 
and a tassel postfix. g@@The coefficient is either 11, 12, or 13. This glyph 
is extremely important, &S@ since it probably is the sign for the great- 
great-cycle, which, so far 243) as the writer knows, is found in only two other 
texts in the Corpus Inscriptionum Mayarun,,' 2.¢., the tablet from the Tem- 
ple of the Inscriptions at Palenque and Stela 1o at Tikal, figure 50,c and d 
respectively. In both these cases the glyph designating the time-period 
of the seventh order or great-great cycle is composed of the cycle-glyph 
with a hand superfix and tassel post-fix. (See figure 50,c and d). ‘The glyph 
here in question, A2a (figure 50, a) is made up of the same elements, and in- 
deed is identical with the great-great cycle glyph on the Tikal monument in 
figure 50,d.° Moreover, the coefficient of the great-great-cycle glyph on the 
Tikal stela is 11, and we have just seen that 11 is one of the only three read- 
ings possible here. A close examination of the original showed that all three 

1 This monument was broken before Stephens’s time, as Catherwood’s drawing and the accompanying descrip- 
tion by Stepheris clearly show. See Stephens, 1841, vol. 1, p. 155. 2 Gordon, 1896, p, 36. 
3 See also Morley, 1915, pp. 28, 69. 4 For a third possible exception, see note 2, p. 281. 
6 Such close resemblance is striking in view of the great distance which separates Tikal and Copan, about 300 
kilometers, and the widely differing epochs from which these two monuments date. Stela 10 at Tikal is one of the 
oldest monuments known in the Maya area (9.3.11.2.0), and Stela C one of the latest at Copan., 9.17.12.0.0, the 
former being more than 250 years earlier than the latter. 
