with the upper half of the exterior walls decorated with grotesque ornaments cut on the faces of the stone. Foster states that "these structures are composed of a soft coralline limestone of comparatively recent geological formation, probably of the Tertiary period."[1]
The so-called idols at Copan are the largest stones worked by the Central Americans. They are about eleven feet high by three feet wide and three feet deep, each face being covered with sculptures and hieroglyphics. In a field near the ruins, and near each other, are nine of these elaborately ornamented statues. By the side of each is a so-called altar, about six feet square and four feet high, made of separate stone. These Idols and Altars have been supposed to have some relation to their religious system, with human sacrifices in the background From their situation and character it may be conjectured that we have here the Copan cemetery, and that these idols are the grave-posts, and these altars are the graves of Copan chiefs. The type of both may still be seen in Nebraska in the grave-posts and grave-mounds by their side, of Iowas and Otoes, and formerly in all parts of the United States east of the Mississippi. If Mr. Stephens had opened one of these altars he would, if this conjecture is well taken, have found within or under it an Indian grave, and perhaps a skeleton, with the personal articles usually entombed beside the dead. It was customary among the Northern Indians for the chosen friend of the decedent, with whom he formed this peculiar tie, to erect his grave-post, representing the chief exploits of the departed upon one side, with ideographs and his own upon the opposite side. "The stone," Mr. Stephens observes, "of which all these altars and statues are made, is a soft grit-stone."[2]
Norman had previously described the material used as a "fine concrete limestone."[3] Elsewhere, with respect to the nature of the tools for cutting this stone, he remarks that "flint was undoubtedly used."[4] Stephens makes a similar statement. The exact size of the stones used is not given, but they were not large. Norman remarks of Chichen Itza that "the stones are cut in parallelopipeds of about twelve inches in length and six in breadth, the interstices filled up with the same materials of which the terraces are
