e IV, our Fig. 50, I found the
same signs exactly; _i. e._, the knot and the two _chiffres_.

[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Statue at Copan.]

[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Statue at Copan.]

At first sight there is only the most general resemblance between the
personages represented in the two plates; as STEPHENS says in his
original account of them, they are "in many respects similar." If he had
known them to be the same, he would not have wasted his time in drawing
them. The scale of the two drawings and of the two statues is different;
but the two personages are the same identically. Figure for figure,
ornament for ornament, they correspond. It is unnecessary to give the
minute comparison here in words. It can be made by any one from the two
plates herewith. Take any part of Plate I, find the corresponding part
of Plate IV, and whether it is human feature or sculptured ornament the
two will be found to be the same.

Take the middle face depending from the belt in each plate. The earrings
are the same; the ornament below the chin, the knot above the head, the
complicated beadwork on each side of this face, all are the same. The
bracelets of the right arms of the main figures have each the forked
serpent tongue, and the left-arm bracelets are ornamented alike. The
crosses with beads almost inclosed in the right hands are alike; the
elliptic ornaments above each wrist, the knots and _chiffres_ over the
serpent masks which surmount the faces, all are the same. In the steel
plates given by STEPHENS there are even more coindences[TN-4] to be seen
than in the excellent wood-cuts here given, which have been copied from
them.

Here, then, is an important fact. The theory that the _chiffre_ over the
forehead is characteristic, though it is not definitively proved,
receives strong confirmation. The parts which have been lost by the
effects of time on one statue can be supplied from the other. Better
than all, we gain a test of the minuteness with which the sculptors
worked, and an idea of how close the adherence to a type was required to
be. Granting once that the two personages are the same (a fact about
which I conceive there can be no possible doubt, since the chances in
favor are literally thousands to one), we learn what license was
allowed, and what synonyms in stone might be employed. Thus, the
ornament suspended from the neck in Plate IV is clearly a tiger's skull.
That from the neck of Plate I has been shown to be the deri