190 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
The inscription, as in the case of Altar H’, is presented upon the ends 
and front, the back, top, and bottom being plain. As this monument is 
20 cm. longer than Altar H’, it has one more glyph-block on the front than 
the latter, making 15, 7. ¢., 4.+7+4, for the entire inscription. 
This text presents a very unusual feature, found only on two other 
monuments in the Maya area—Stela 4, also here at Copan, and Stela Io, 
at Tikal—namely, the record of its Initial Series introducing glyph in a 
position other than at the beginning of the inscription, 7. ¢., here in the 
second position. (See B, plate 23, d.) Fortunately, in the present case there 
exists an excellent reason to account for this highly irregular procedure, but 
in the case of the other Copan example, Stela 4, as will appear later, the 
inversion is inexplicable. (See p. 356.) 
The first glyph-block, a (plate 23, d), presents a Secondary Series com- 
posed of 7.14.11, the tun coefficient being surely above 10 and below 16. But 
since there is no date from which this may be counted, let us proceed with 
the examination of our text. B is an Initial Series introducing glyph, and 
following this in c to E is an Initial Series number. 
The cycle-sign and its coefficient in c u. h. clearly record 9 cycles 
and the katun-sign and coefficient in c |. h., 13 katuns. This much is 
certain. Unfortunately, the greater part of the next glyph-block, p, and half 
of the next, Ea (plate 23, ¢), are gone, being on the missing fragment, but the 
kin-sign appears in Ed u. h., and, far more important, the month of the Initial 
Series terminal date, 8 Uo, in Ed]. h., thus reducing the possible readings for 
this Initial Series from 7,200 to 20.! 
The writer made a protracted search for this missing piece, not only 
in the immediate neighborhood of the other four fragments, which were 
apparently found together, but also throughout the Western Court as well, 
but with no success. Galindo? describes Altar I’ as very broken in 1834; and 
Maudslay states*® that excavations had been made under both of these altars, 
at which time they were probably broken and possibly the corner now missing 
was then carried off. It is a small fragment, only 25 cm. long on one side 
and 13 cm. on the other, and may have been taken some little distance and 
left in the bush. It is to be hoped that eventually it will be found. However, 
even though it never should be recovered, there are sufficient data on the 
remaining pieces to assign this altar to its proper position in Maya chronology. 
It was mentioned above that the record of the month of the Initial 
Series terminal date in E1) |. h. reduced the possible readings from 7,200 to 
20. Now, while it is hardly necessary to repeat all of the latter here, since 
the first is so obviously the one intended by the ancient sculptors, it has 
seemed best to do so, since the complete list makes it so clear why the 
first value is the best choice from the Maya point of view. Referring to 



1 Since the katun-coefficient is surely 13, this fact alone limits the number of possible dates to 7,200; and further, 
since any month-position, as 8 Uo here, recurred at intervals of every 365 days; and finally, since Katun 13 ended 
on the month-position 8 Uo, this position only occurred 19 times thereafter between 9.13.0.0.0 and 9.14.0.0.0. 
? Galindo, 1834, Appendix XI, p. 597. 
3 Maudslay, 1889-1902, vol. 1 of text p. 24. 
