394 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
well as the lavish wealth of detail, double-lining, cross-hatching, and the 
ornamentation of numerical elements such as the bar and dot, with interior 
decorations. 
Gradually, as the Old Empire wore on, these features became more 
simplified. The bar-and-dot elements lose their interior decoration and 
become plain, extensive double-lining, cross-hatching, and ornate details 
disappear, and the whole treatment becomes freer and simpler. Along with 
these developments went an increasing depth of relief. In the earliest texts 
the carving is very flat and low, but later it begins to stand out from the 
body of the monument, the background being cut back farther and farther 
until in the last group of stele in the Great Plaza it is from 10 to 12 cm. deep. 
A consistent development is also seen at Copan in the arrangement of 
the design in the stela type of monument, of which there are 36. While 
this does not follow a strictly chronologic order in the monumental sequence 
as a whole, the several “schools” or classes of monuments clearly were of 
successive origin, as the following table shows: 
Period. Date. Class 1(2).|Class 2(4). Class 3 (9). Class 4 (11)./Class 5(4).|Class 6 (6). 
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The simplest arrangement possible is where only one face is sculptured, 
the remaining three faces being plain but dressed (Class 1), of which there 
are only 2 examples. The next is that where two alternate faces are sculp- 
tured, the remaining two being plain but dressed (Class 2). This arrange- 
ment was introduced as early as 9.2.10.0.0, and 4 examples of it have been 
found. 
