Note III-27 — Chapter III · ANTIQUITIES OF SALVADOR AND HONDURAS. RUINS OF COPAN.

Stephens' Cent. Amer., vol. i., pp. 140-2, with plates; Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1841, tom. xcii., pp. 57, 67-8. Plate. Mention of the altar with a comparison of the cross-legged chiefs to certain ornaments of Xochicalco. Tylor's Anahuac, p. 190. The altar is described by Galindo as a very remarkable stone table in the temple, 'two feet four inches high, and four feet ten inches square; its top contains forty-nine square tablets of hieroglyphics; and its four sides are occupied by sixteen human figures in basso-relievo, sitting cross-legged, on cushions carved in the stone, and bearing each in their hands something like a fan or flapper.' Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. ii., p. 548. To Mr Jones, possessed as that gentleman is with the 'Soul of History,' this altar is the 'Rosetta-stone' of American antiquity. The four supporting stones are eggs; serpents occur in the ornaments; the objects held in the hands of the lesser personages of the sides are spiral shells; the figures are seated cross-legged, or in the oriental style; one chief holds a sceptre, the other none. Now these interpretations are important to the author, since he claims that the serpent was the good demon of the Tyrians; a serpent entwining an egg is seen on Tyrian coins; the spiral shell was also put on Tyrian medals in honor of the discovery of the famous purple; the style of sitting is one practiced in Tyre; the chief representing Tyre holds no sceptre, because Tyre had ceased to be a nation at the time of the event designed to commemorate. The conclusion is clear: the altar was built in commemoration of an act of friendship between Tyre and Sidon, by which act the people of the former nation were enabled to migrate to America! Jones' Hist. Anc. Amer., pp. 65-6, 156-62. More of this in a future treatise on origin.