ARCHEOLOGY. 363 



These new monuments are magnificent specimens of Old Empire 

 sculpture; indeed, Stela 2 and its associated altar will rank among the 

 very finest examples of Maya plastic art that have come down to us. 



Dr. Guthe's discovery of two inscribed monuments at Tayasal, the 

 last Itza capital (1450-1697 A. D.), was a find of first importance. 

 One is a stela, the other a lintel. Unfortunately, only the base of 

 the former is preserved; enough remains, however, to show that it 

 had been inscribed with a double column of glyphs on the back. 



The lintel, although broken, is more nearly complete. It clearly 

 records a Calendar Round date, of which the day is surely 1 1 Ahau 

 and the month 18 ?, the incomplete month-sign bearing more resem- 

 blance to Mac than to any other month-sign. There were no ka- 

 tuns, lahuntuns, or hotuns which ended on the day 11 Ahau 18 Mac 

 during the occupation of Tayasal, but the tun ending 12.5.9.0.0 (1467 

 A. D.) fell on this date. If the above reading is correct, this lintel 

 must have been carved very shortly after the Itza established them- 

 selves at Tayasal; unfortunately, the doubtful identity of the month- 

 sign casts a cloud on its accuracy. In any event, Dr. Guthe's dis- 

 covery of inscribed monuments at the very beginning of his work 

 justifies the expectation that subsequent excavations will uncover 

 other similar material and shed much light on this final phase of inde- 

 pendent Maya history. 



The last fortnight of the field season (May 18 to June 1) was spent 

 at Piedras Negras on the Usumacintla River in the westernmost 

 corner of Peten. As already noted, five new monuments and nine new 

 Initial Series were discovered at this site. Scale drawings of all Initial 

 and Supplementary Series were made and a large number of photo- 

 graphs were secured. 



The most important contribution here was the filling in of lacunse 

 in the sequence of the hotun-markers, so that now the corresponding 

 marker for every 1800-day period from 9.10.5.0.0 to 9.18.5.0.0, 33 in 

 all, has been identified. In some cases, as for example, Stelse 39, 38, 

 and 40, it was even possible to predict what their corresponding dates 

 would be in advance of the actual decipherment of them, because 

 these particular hotun-endings, 9.12.5.0.0, 9.12.10.0.0, and 9.15.15.0.0, 

 respectively had not been represented heretofore in the monumental 

 sequence. These three new monuments were found to record pre- 

 cisely these three dates. 



Piedras Negras presents a longer unbroken sequence of hotun- 

 markers than any other Maya city, 33 (165 years) as compared with 

 14 (60 years) at Quirigua, the next most perfect. This feature, it is 

 anticipated, will greatly assist in the final elucidation of the Supple- 

 mentary Series, which is a lunar count associated in some as yet 

 undetermined way with eclipse phenomena. 



One other discovery at Piedras Negras is worthy of special mention, 

 namely, the finding of a fragment of Stela 30 reused in the roofing of 



