14S THE AECHAIO MAYA INSCRIPTIONS. 



made over thousands of years and back again, with the ease and swiftness with which 

 in Eastern story the couch of the prince is transported 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 estimation, could 

 have but a single purpose — that of recording the date at which the monument was 

 erected. Some of the stela? have different initial dates on opposite 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 inscriptions and see to what these 

 conclusions lead. The latest initial date is found on a stela at Quirigua. It is 

 55_3_19 — 2 — 18x20— 7 Ahau-18 Pop. That is 2,840 years subsequent to the 

 average of initial dates in the other Quirigua inscriptions. The next latest initial date 

 is on a restored stairway in one of the temples of Palenque. It is 55 — 3 — 18 — 12 — 

 15x12 — 8 Eb-15 Pop. That is 7,082 years later than the earliest initial dates at 

 Palenque. These are long periods ; but the limit is not yet reached. In the museum 

 at Leyden is the misnamed " Yucatec " stone, exhumed in digging a cut on the line 

 between British Honduras and Guatemala, about a hundred miles from Copan. It is 

 a thin slab of jadite, about a foot long and four inches wide, if my recollection of it is 

 correct. Both sides are inscribed in rather a rude manner, the rudeness apparently 

 being more attributable to the hardness of the stone than to a lack of skill in the 

 artist. The carving on the front represents a warrior trampling an enemy under his 

 feet. The stone, therefore, is evidently a memorial of some victory or conquest. The 

 inscription on the back consists of an initial date in the Archaic form and characters. 

 It is 53 — 8 — 14 — 3 — 1x12 — 1 Eb-5 Zac. That is 8,383 years anterior to the latest 

 initial date in Quirigua. Now, if in accordance with my theory respecting the era of 

 the Archaic cities, the 2,348 years that have elapsed since that Quirigua date was 

 made be added to the above period, we shall arrive at the time when that ancient 

 Maya conqueror trod his enemies under foot — 10,731 years ago — the oldest historical 

 date in the world. 



Such a vast stretch of national existence as these dates indicate somehow jars upon 

 our sense of propriety and makes us distrust the evidence. But the figures are there ; 

 and, unless at some time past they changed character so that they could lie, we must 

 accept the startling revelation. After all, it is only unwont and example by which 

 we are staggered. As to the proposition itself, there is no demonstrated reason why a 

 nation should not exist a million years as well as a hundred. National existence is 



