4 
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, TECHNICAL PAPERS 
jacent to the terminal glyph represents the 
coefficient of the day sign, the complete 
reading of the date would be (7) -16-6-16- 
18, or 6 Eznab 1 Uo, since only by supply¬ 
ing a baktun reading of 7 can the require¬ 
ments of the day sign 6 be satisfied. 
At this point the important question 
arises as to whether or not this represents 
a contemporary date. Several lines of ap¬ 
proach to this problem are indicated. 
These approaches consist of an investiga¬ 
tion of the physical conditions relating to 
the monument, an examination of other 
cultural material found at the site, a com¬ 
parative analysis of the mask panel design 
and a comparative study of the Initial 
Series itself. 
The fact that the stela and its altar were 
almost completely buried by natural proc¬ 
esses does not necessarily indicate a great 
lapse of time since they were abandoned, 
as material could probably have washed 
down from the mound comparatively rap¬ 
idly. The weathering to which the stela 
has been subjected is, however, significant. 
The stone is a tough, resistant piece of fine¬ 
grained olivine basalt. The face of the 
monument is considerably eroded, whereas 
the dated side is so little weathered as to 
still present an almost polished surface. 
Evidently the original stela had lain on its 
back for a long period before being re-used, 
as this weathering took place before the 
fragment was set up in the position where 
found. From the difference in weathering 
on the two sides of the stone it would ap¬ 
pear that the interval between the time that 
the original monument fell and the time it 
was broken for re-use was greater than the 
period which has elapsed since. 
There has not been time as yet to com¬ 
plete a final study of the very large collec¬ 
tion of pottery, figurines and other artifacts 
from the Tres Zapotes site. Preliminary 
examination, however, reveals the abundant 
presence of materials relating to the early 
Middle American ceramic horizons. Among 
these, close analogies exist with Uaxactun 
I A, I B, 1 Gualupita I, 2 and Monte Alban 
I and II. 3 
1 Uaxactun, Guatemala, Group E, O. G. Ricket- 
son and E. B. Ricketson, Carnegie Institution of 
Washington, 1937. 
2 Excavations at Gualupita, Suzannah B. and 
George C. Vaillant, Anthropological Papers of 
the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 
XXXV, Part I, New York, 1934. 
3 Exploraciones en Oaxaca, Alfonso Caso, In¬ 
stitute Panamericano de Geografia e Historia, 
Publication numero 34, Mexico, 1938. 
AN INITIAL SERIES FROM TRES ZAPOTES 
5 
7 V; 
i f ; . 
. 
FIGURE 4-THE INITIAL SERIES INSCRIBED ON THE BACK OF STELA “c” 
All of the periods above mentioned have 
been generally assigned by archeologists 
who worked the sites to an age approxi¬ 
mating the date indicated on Stela “C”. 
Because of its re-use, it is impossible as 
yet to definitely correlate Stela “C” with 
any ceramic horizon. Nevertheless the pot¬ 
tery secured from the earth which buried 
it is of an early type and, as already indi¬ 
cated, a considerable time period must have 
elapsed before the original monument was 
broken up. 
The most recent material found at Tres 
Zapotes occurs with cremated “urn” burials 
found in the black surface soil which covers 
the main deposit of early cultural material. 
These latest burials, however, appear to be 
definitely pre-Columbian. 
Of great importance in establishing the 
contemporaneous or non-contemporaneous 
nature of the date is the design carved in 
low relief on the face of the stela (fig¬ 
ure 3). This seems to represent a stylized 
feline face which has in fact its closest 
analogies in the so-called "tiger mask 17 
panels which are fairly common features 
of Maya art. Such mask panels, however, 
run through a considerable time period of 
the Maya Old Empire. Usually they ap¬ 
pear as architectural features. Occasionally 
they also occur on stone monuments, as at 
La Honradez, Xmakabatun and Yaxchilan 
(figure 8, a, b), where they are associated 
with dates belonging to the last quarter of 
Baktun 9. An important early occurrence 
of the mask panel motive is found on the 
very early terraced pyramid E-VII sub at 
Uaxactun. The general resemblance of 
these to the mask panel on Stela “C” is 
rather striking. The similarity in conven¬ 
tionalizing the mouth parts, the elongated 
eyes, the broad nose with wide bridge ex¬ 
tending between and above the eyes, are all 
features which bear out this comparison 1 
(figures 7 and 8, d, e). 
There are two other occurrences of 
“masks” somewhat similar to this at Tres 
Zapotes. One is on the upper part of Stela 
“A”, the other is on the principal side of 
the carved stone box “B”. 
Belonging to the same art category as 
the Tuxtla statuette and the face on Stela 
“C” are the “baby face” or jaguar figures 
which occur in both stone and pottery and 
1 A detailed analysis of the E-VII sub masks 
and comparisons with similar mask panels from 
the Maya area are included by Ricketson in his 
Uaxactun report, Ricketson, 1937. See also 
Spinden, Maya Art. 
