APPENDIX III. 
THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE COPAN MONUMENTS. 
The nomenclature of the Copan monuments, followed throughout the present 
investigation, is that inaugurated by Maudslay in 1885, added to by the several 
Peabody Museum Expeditions from 1891 to 1895, and finally completed by the 
writer in 1910, 1912, and 1915 to 1919. Unfortunately, like anything else which 
has grown up piece-meal, and is the result of different minds working at different 
times, this nomenclature is open to serious objections, but in order to avoid con- 
fusion, as well as in recognition of Maudslay’s well-merited priority, the Peabody 
Museum followed his names for the mounds and monuments, adding on where 
necessary, and the writer has thought it best to do the same. 
The first nomenclature known is the numerical one under which Galindo 
describes the several monuments he saw in 1834. He seems to have made a num- 
ber of drawings of these, but they had been removed from his report when it first 
came into Gates’s possession in 1917 and their present whereabouts is unknown 
unless they are in the archives of the Société de Géographie of Paris. (See Appen- 
dix XI and also note I, page 19.) 
Five years later, in 1839, Stephens gave the monuments alphabetic designa- 
tions, and this nomenclature was the first one to be published (see Stephens, 1841). 
In 1877, Meye visited the ruins and secured data for a map of the Main Struc- 
ture and drawings of some of the monuments, which were published in 1883 (see 
Schmidt, 1883). He was the first to adopt a two-fold nomenclature, generally, 
although not invariably, using numbers for the monuments and sculptures and 
letters for the principal architectural features, such as courts and mounds. 
In 1885, when Maudslay undertook his principal work at Copan, the existing 
literature of the site was so scanty and the previous work of such a casual character 
that he was amply justified in starting his system of nomenclature de novo. He 
named the monuments as they are now known from A to U inclusive, and the 
principal mounds from I to 29 inclusive, his No. 29 being the pyramid at the south- 
east corner of the village plaza (Group 9). This series of monuments includes 12 
stele, A, B, C, D, E, F, H, I, J, M, N, and P, and 11 altars, G,, Gz, G3, K, L, O, Q, 
R, S, T, and U. (See Maudslay, 1889-1902, vol. 1, plate 1, and vol. 1 of text, p. 15.) 
When the Peabody Museum began its work in 1891, it was very wisely decided 
to continue Maudslay’s previous nomenclature, as stated by Putnam in his editorial 
note to the first volume of the Museum Memoirs by Gordon: 
“As Mr. Maudslay had given names, with reference by letters and figures, to the various 
portions of the Ruins and to prominent sculptures, the same designations are given in this 
report and on the accompanying plan. Additional features have been indicated by con- 
tinuing in sequence the letters and figures, thus avoiding duplication and confusion.”? 
In conformance with this policy, three newly discovered altars were given the 
letters X, Y, and Z, and then, the alphabet having been exhausted, the new stelz 
found were numbered from I to I5 inclusive, which is the only consistent feature 
of the nomenclature at Copan. Maudslay’s numeration of the mounds was retained, 
1Gordon, 1896, p. iii. 
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