538 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
except for a few minor variations,’ and the mounds lying to the south and west of 
the Main Structure were numbered from 30 to 56 inclusive.2 (See Gordon, 1896, 
plate 1, and the accompanying insert, which gives the corresponding legend.) 
At this point the writer’s nomenclature of the monuments begins. As the 
Peabody Museum additions to Maudslay’s list include nothing for the letters V 
and W, the writer has assigned two small altars found by the First Peabody Museum 
Expedition at the Main Structure to them. 
In order to preserve the single element of consistency now present in the 
nomenclature of the Copan monuments, 1. ¢., the designation of stela by numbers 
exclusively, broken in one place only by Altar 14, the writer has found it necessary 
to employ a second alphabet, designated thus, A’, B’, C’, etc., in order to find names 
for newly-discovered altars, fragments of unknown nature, and other remains show- 
ing inscriptions. Indeed, these latter have now reached a total of 26, and this 
second alphabet is exhausted. It is recommended that subsequent discoveries of 
objects of this kind be given the letters of a third alphabet, thus, A’, B’’, C”, etc. 
The new stelz discovered or first described by the writer have been numbered 
-from 16 to 25 inclusive, and, barring the single exception already noted, Altar 14, 
Nos. 1 to 25 allrefertostelz. Itis further suggested that any new stele discovered 
hereafter should be numbered in sequence from No. 25 on, so as to preserve this 
single element of consistency in the Copan nomenclature. 
The writer has made no addition to the nomenclature of the mounds, which 
remains as the Peabody Museum left it at the conclusion of its work in 1895. 
Descriptions of all the foregoing monuments, under the several letters of these 
two alphabets and the numerical series from I to 25 inclusive, together with several 
architectural features, such as the Hieroglyphic Stairway of Mound 26, the Review- 
ing-stand in the Western Court (No. 12 of the Peabody Museum nomenclature), 
for example, will be found in Chapters II, III, and IV, with the exception of Altars 
14 and O, neither of which presents an inscription. The writer has never seen the 
former, and except for the fact that it is somewhere along the river-bank on the 
north side, as shown by the Peabody Museum photograph No. 1904, its provenance 
is unknown. The latter is at the western end of the Court of the Hieroglyphic 
Stairway, just east of Mound 7. (See Maudslay, 1889-1902, plate 1.) 
This nomenclature, which has grown by accretion, so to speak, is at best a 
patch-work affair, a jumble of two alphabets and two numerical series, one of the 
latter referring to monuments, the other to architectural features, such as mounds, 
stairways, etc., but the existing literature based upon it is already so large that it 
has appeared ade in the present investigation, and will probably so prove 
in any subsequent one, to change it, and the writer has followed in the footsteps of 
Maudslay and Gordon, the field director of the Fourth Peabody Museum Expedi- 
tion, who wrote the final report, building on from the point where they left off. 
In the following list of equivalents, the nomenclature followed in this investi- 
gation is given in the first column, and the Galindo, Stephens, and Meye equiva- 
lents, when there are any, are given in the second, third, and fourth columns 
respectively. The order of arrangement follows the sequence in which the monu- 
ments were first named, and not their chronological order as in Appendix IX. 
1Maudslay’s No. 24, the Jaguar Stairway in the Eastern Court at the Main Structure, is No. 23 of the Peabody 
Museum nomenclature; the former’s No. 23, being a stairway near the latter’s No. 24. The former’s No. 29, 
the pyramid at the southeastern corner of the village plaza, is not numbered by the Peabody Museum at all, the 
latter’s No. 29 being a small mound and terrace south of the high pyramid, No. 16, at the Main Structure. Finally, 
No. 21a, not numbered by Maudslay, is between the latter’s Nos. 21 and 22. 
2No. 50 is just north of the high pyramid, No. 16. No. 35 does not appear on Gordon’s map of the Main 
Structure, but on the accompanying legend he states it was a part of the same group as Nos. 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34. 
Presumably it is the small mound just northwest of his No. 34. 
