cipactli head, and it will be remembered that the Mexicans believed the earth to have been created from a monstrous cipactli (p. 59). It is true that the “foliated cross” is supported by a head of another type, but there is a particular reason for this; the “foliated cross” is in reality a maize-plant, the head is that of a rain- or water-god (of whom parallels are found at Chichen Itza and other places), and the combination symbolizes the dependence of the maize-crop upon the water-supply. The finest example of the double-headed earth-monster is the remarkable monolith, designated P, at Quirigua (Pl. XXVI, 1; p. 338.) The illustration shows the principal head of the animal with widely-distended jaws enclosing the figure of a deity. [Illustration: FIG. 51.--Rear head of the two-headed monster; Temple of the Cross, Palenque. (_After Maudslay_)] The earth-monster is not however the only two-headed animal in Maya art. Many of the stelæ, particularly those at Copan, Quirigua and Naranjo, show a figure bearing in its arms an object usually known as the “ceremonial bar” (see Pl. XXI; p. 236). In some cases the object appears simply as a two-headed snake, with drooping body, but in the majority of instances it resembles a beam with a snake-head at either end. In either case the heads are similar, and resemble the main head of the earth-monster; while the open jaws enclose the head of a god, usually God B, the rain-god, but sometimes the sun- or sky-god. Where the body assumes the beam form, it is divided into panels, enclosing glyphs which are almost certainly symbols of certain planets, the sun, moon, day and night. Now practically throughout America the snake is the emblem of clouds, rain and lightning, and I would suggest that this symbol represents the sky. From this point of view the association of the planet symbols, and the gods of the sun and rain, is explained, and one immediately recalls the myth according to which the creator placed the four Bacabs at the cardinal points to support the heavens. It may be that the figure which holds the “bar” may represent one of these deities; and this suggestion is to some extent supported by the following facts. Many, though not all, of the stelæ bear dates recording even katun quarters (a katun = 7200 days, see p. 251), and it is possible that these stelæ were erected to mark the lapse of regular periods of time. The historical Maya were in the habit, so Landa states, of setting up a “stone” to commemorate the passing of a katun, and also of holding certain ceremonies at one of the sacred piles of stones outside the village in honour of the commencement of each solar year. These ceremonies were in honour of the Bacab, who was supposed to preside over the year in question (see p. 263). Now a large proportion of the figures portrayed upon stelæ at various sites carry, instead of the “bar,” an object hitherto called the “mannikin sceptre.”