INSCRIPTIONS OF THE EARLY PERIOD. I2I 
It is evident from the style of Fragments V’ that they all belong to the 
Early Period, but there is less certainty as to the age of Fragment S’; while 
the latter shows secondary usage, it is not clear from its style whether it 
dates from the latter part of the Early Period or from the Middle Period. 
Fragment S’ (see figure 21) was found with its sculptured face turned 
down, on the inclined facing of the east side of Mound 9 at the Main Struc- 
ture. In reshaping it for this use, part of the original design was broken 
off. In its present condition it is 55 cm. long, 36 cm. wide, and 13 cm. thick. 
The single sculptured face preserved formed 
part of the right-hand side of some monument, as 
the original right-hand marginal band is still to be 
seen. (See figure 21.) All that is now left of the in- 
scription, however, is part of one glyph-block. The 
first glyph is the sign found almost invariably with 
Secondary Series, which it usually precedes. The 
next is 11 uinals or 220 days. The last glyph— C 
only part of which is preserved—is a day. The Fic. 21—Inscription on 
upper part of the day-sign may still be distinguished, Pee 
as well as the upper part of its coefficient, which must have been either 2, 3, 
or 4, with the best reading at 2 or 3. A scroll, the significance of which is not 
clear, appears between the day-sign and its coefficient. The relief, though 
low and flat, is very well executed. 
Mound 9, where this fragment was found, probably was constructed 
during the early part of the Middle Period, since Stela 1, which was built 
into the second step of the stairway on its western side (see plate 6, and p. 
163), records the hotun-ending 9.11.15.0.0. 
This monument had a cruciform chamber underneath its foundations like 
the one under Stela 7, already described, which was opened by the Fourth 
Peabody Museum Expedition in 1895 (pp. 161, 162). The complexity of 
this chamber with relation to Mound 9 was such as to have necessitated 
its having been constructed at the same time that Mound 9 was being built; 
that is, at the same time Fragment S’ was being reused in the inclined facing 
on the opposite side. This, therefore, would appear to make Fragment S’ 
earlier than 9.11.15.0.0, but how much earlier it is impossible to say. Its 
stylistic characteristics find their closest affinities with sculptures dating from 
the close of the Early Period or the beginning of the Middle Period, to 
which katuns, 9.9.0.0.0-9.11.0.0.0, it is probably to be referred. 

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The two most striking points in connection with the monuments of the 
Early Period at Copan are (1) their provenance and (2) their periodicity, 
each of which will bear further elaboration, since upon the first rests the 
whole question of the earliest intensive occupation of the valley and the 
first center of population, and upon the second probably hinges the very 
meaning of the Maya monuments. 
