THOMAS] SIGNIFICATION OF THE NUMERAL SERIES 291 



If we take the terminal dates of tlic initial series atQuirigua (omit- 

 ting from eonsideration tliose of the minor series) we find the differ- 

 ence between tlie earliest and latest, with two exceptions to be 

 noticed, is only some 83 or 84 j'ears. This difference is so moderate 

 as to be entirely consistent with the idea that the dates were engraved 

 near the time of the events or incidents to which they refer, if, in fact, 

 this was the object in giving them. The two excepted are numbers 6 

 and 10 of the list given below. The calculation I give is based on 

 what seem to be the reliable series and dates, leaving out of consid- 

 eration the exceptional and doubtful series. Comparing the earliest 

 and latest of those at Copan, we find the difference to be about 

 222 years. This is by no means extravagant, hence the dates may 

 refer to histoi'ical events. AVhen we come to those at Palenque, we 

 find the difference — even excluding the most recent date, which Good- 

 man admits is doubtful — to be over 3,800 years. Although a differ- 

 ence in dates as great or greater than this has been found in the 

 inscriptions of the ruins of Egypt and Assyria and accepted as reason- 

 ablj- correct, no archeologist of the present day not carried away by 

 some extravagant theory will believe that inscriptions were chiseled 

 at Palenque at dates 3,800 years apart in actual time, the earliest 

 (counting from the coming of the Spaniards) going back more than 

 2,200 years before the Chi-istian era. 



Now, it is the opinion of Goodman and Seler that the terminal dates 

 of the inscriptions (the latter excepts those at Palenque, as explained 

 below) refer to the times when the monuments were erected or the 

 inscriptions chiseled. The assertion of the former on this jioint (pages 

 147-8) is as follows: 



Particular emphasis is intended to belaid uijon " iuitiar" dates in the foregoing 

 estimate. There are two kinds of dates in the Archaic inscriptions. The dates 

 of one character, and those of most frequent occurrence, appear in the liody of the 

 texts, and designate tlie points from or to which the reckonings extend. Some- 

 times they are but a day apart: at others, they are a few months or years, while 

 occasionally a flight is made over thousands of years and back again, with the 

 ease and swiftness with which in Eastern story the couch of the prince is trans- 

 ported by genii. These dates have no significance beyond their relation to other 

 dates and the corresponding reckonings. 



But with the other class, the initial dates, as Maudslay has very appropriately 

 named them, it is quite different. The inscription on nearly every temple, stela, 

 and altar begins with one of them, reciting the great cycle, cycle, katun, ahau, 

 chuen. month, and day. Such conspicuousness and circumstantiality, in my esti- 

 mation, could have but a single purpose — that of recording the date at which the 

 monument was erected. Some of the stelae have different initial dates on oppo- 

 site sides, but in these instances one date is reckoned from the other, the later one 

 undoubtedly designating the time of dedication. I think there is nothing we can 

 assume with more assurance of certainty than that these initial series mark the 

 date of erection of the respective monuments. 



Taking this for granted, also, we will turn to the in.scriptions and see to what 

 these conclusions lead. The latest initial date is found on a stela at Quirigna. 

 It is 55-3-19-2-18X20— 7 Ahau-18 Pop. That is 2,840 years subsequent to the 



