ARCHAEOLOGY. 



361 



(8.6.2.4.17) by 4 years and that on page 70 of the Dresden Codex 

 (8.6.16.12.17) by 18 years, the two earHest historical Initial Series 

 previously known. 



The outstanding importance of this discovery lies in the fact that 

 we may probably interpret it as indicating that the Maya in Baktun 9 

 still preserved definite traditional knowledge, if not indeed actual 

 contemporaneous historical records, reaching back to the beginning of 

 Baktun 8, four or five centuries earlier. 



Of scarcely less importance were the discovery and decipherment 

 of another Baktun 8 Initial Series at Uolantun. (See figure 16.) 

 In the case of this monument, however, its Initial Series (8.18.13.5.11) 



Fig. 1. — Stela 25 at Naranjo. a. The 

 inscription on this monument opens 

 with the date 8.5.18.4.0 (100 B. C.) the 

 earliest historical Maya date yet dis- 

 covered. The contemporaneous date, 

 however, was 445 years later or 345 

 A. D. h. Stela 1 at Uolantun. This 

 monument bears the date of 8.18.13.5.11 

 (150 A. D.) which makes it the next 

 oldest Maya yet discovered, Stela 9 

 at Uaxactun antedating it by 80 years. 

 It has been broken into fragments in 

 ancient times and the top fragment was 

 reshaped for use as an altar after it had 

 been broken. 



iJGCD 



is the contemporaneous date, which makes it the second oldest Maya 

 monument yet reported, being 81 years later than Stela 9 at Uaxactun 

 and 66 years earlier than the earliest date yet deciphered at Tikal 

 (9.2.0.0.0 on Stela 9). 



Uaxactun, containing the oldest ]\Iaya monument yet reported 

 (8.14.10.13.15 on Stela 9), is 10 miles north of Tikal,^ and Uolantun is 

 4 miles south. 



In the same vicinity, at El Encanto, 12 miles northeast of Tikal, 

 Dr. R. E. Merwin discovered another early monument in 1910;^ 

 and although it has been impossible to decipher the date of this, on 

 stylistic grounds it may surely be referred to the early part of Baktun 9. 



At Tikal four very early Baktun 9 dates were deciphered this season 

 as follows: 



^See Year Book No. 15, pp. 339, 340. 



^See Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. V, No. 3, pi. 53, pp. 152, 163, 194. 



