322 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



department — the island village of Flores — and placed itself in touch 

 with the local authorities. No large sites had been discovered in the 

 central part of Peten during the past four years, and the expedition 

 returned to the frontiers of British Honduras, preparatory to making 

 another trip into the northeastern corner of the department, which 

 offers the most promising field for exploratory work. At Benque 

 Viejo, British Honduras, information was received of a new site, 

 about 60 miles to the northwest, and a mule-train was engaged and 

 the party proceeded thither during the last fortnight in May. The 

 new site, to which the name Xultun^ was given, proved to be of great 

 importance, no less in fact than a city of the second class with two 

 principal plazas, 50 subsidiary courts, and 18 sculptm'ed monuments. 

 It has more structures, covering a larger area, than either Piedras 

 Negras or Quirigua, and has more sculptured monuments than either 

 Nakum or Palenque. It is larger than La Honradez in the same 

 region, and was probably the largest city of the Old Empire in north- 

 eastern Peten. 



The inscribed monuments are the most important feature of the new 

 city. They are found around the sides of the two principal plazas, 

 10 in Group A (fig. 1) and 8 in Group B, all the earlier monuments 

 being in the latter and all the later ones in the former. Of these 18 

 sculptured stelae (no plain stelae were found at the site), 8 have Initial 

 Series dates, 2 have Period-Ending dates, and 8 are as yet indeter- 

 minate. Of the Initial Series stelae, the dates of three have been 

 surely deciphered, and a fourth probably so, as follows : 



Approx. 



Group A Stela 3 10. I.IO.CO 4 Ahau 13 Kankin 600 A.D. 



Group A Stela 10 10. 3. 0.0.0 1 Ahau 3 Yaxkin 630 A.D. 



Group B Stela 11 9.15.0.0.0 4 Ahau 13 Yax(?) 472 A.D. 



Group B Stela 13 9.14. 0.0.0 6 Ahau 13 Muan 452 A.D. 



Stela 10 (fig. 2, right half) is of unusual importance, since it is the 

 latest monument, by 20 years, yet reported from any Old Empire site. 

 The date is recorded by an Initial Series, the coefficients of which are 

 all bar-and-dot numerals, and there is no doubt as to the accuracy of 

 the reading given. It is interesting to note that the discovery of this 

 monument proves that the close of the Old Empire was contemporane- 

 ous with the beginning of the New Empire, as suggested in ''The 

 Inscriptions at Copan," since the date on the Temple of the Initial 

 Series at Chichen Itza, in northern Yucatan (New Empire), is just 

 10 years earlier than the date of Stela 10 at Xultun (Old Empire) ; in a 

 word, the monumental series of the Old and New Empires are now 

 seen to have overlapped by at least 10 years. On the basis of the 

 dates thus far deciphered, the city would seem to have had a period 



^Xul is the Maya word for "end" or "close," and tun the word for stone. Xultun, therefore, 

 may be translated "end stone" or "last stone," the name being suggested by the fact that the 

 latest Old Empire monument yet reported is Stela 10 at this site. 



