Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1902-05-16
diEROoLYPHic STAIRWAY.
ope of Americas Oldest Monuments
tnearthed by Peabody Museum.

tneerthed by Peabody Museum.
The Hieroglyphic stairway Mt Copan.
In Honduras. gets its name from the
strange picture writing-"glyphs," the
orch1oloSist calls them - with which
the faces OF its steps and the several
pieces OF sculpture which were part OF
It's original ornamentation are inscrib-
ed. 1t is one OF the most curious, as
well MS one OF tho most interesting and
important. monuments of aboriginal
America, and research parties from the
Peabody Museum OF American Archa-
ology and Ethnology at Harvard have
been ten years in uncovering and
studying Ii under the direction of MIR.
George II. Gordon, whose entertaining
report summarizing the decades work
has just been published by the mu-
scum.
What the inscriptions on the Hero
glyphic stairway mean is not fully
known, for many OF the word signs of
the language OF the ancient Magyar
people, in which they were traced, are
still undeciphered. The structure was
the approach by which the summit of
the acropolis of Copan-which is the
most ancient American city yet discov-
ered-was reached from one side. The
mound is pyramidal in shape and ap-
pears to have been crowned at one
time with great temple or palace, but
the symmetry of two of its faces was
swept away at some time by a great
landslide that carried down the build
ing at the top i'm Its ruin, and on one
of these faces was the stairway.
In the landslip forty or fifty of the
upper steps were disIodged and buried
under such mass of debris that II re-
CURED four entire seasons of hard
work by the Peabody museums expe-
ditions to attain any semblance of or
der. Altogether twenty-seven steps
have been restored to approximate COM
pleteness. though large pieces are still
missing from some of them. Except
for broad step at the bottom all were
inscribed with glyphs, which are be-
lieved to have composed q chronologic.
al record of some sort, inasmuch as the
date signs, which are the best under.
stood picture words of the Magyar Ian.
guage, recur again aud again. Mr..
Gordon found evidence that the I'm.
scription began at the top of the stair
way, which seems to have had some
eighty-fve or ninety steps. and was
read from left to right and from step
to step downward.
In the middle of the stairs. which are
twenty-five feet wide, stood five Cisnn.
tic statues placed at intervals, and on
either side was n heavy balustrade
carved with alternate symbols of fishes
and birds. On the broad bottom step
there was an altar that had the shape
OF serpent's head. and the general
scheme seems to have been that the
stairway should represent the snakes
trailing body. Another altar, which
stood directly in front of the structure.
took the form of n four legged. gro.
tesque animal without a head and with
two holes IT Its sides that seem orig.
inssy - have kesa elles by carvings
of double hrt,<eS dragon. in one or
which the monsters open jaws held n
sort or portrait presumably OF some
king, sage or chieftain.
While clearing the Copan acropolis
the Peabody museums investigators
brought to light the foundations of
buildings still older than the staircase
or the temple TO which 1t led, and in
some places several distinct layers of
ruins, evidently the remains OF differ.
ent building periods, were found.