INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 193 
was concerned, since it goes back to Cycle 7, from which no other dates are 
known, bespeaks a high intellectual development, and indicates that the 
priesthood, or those who worked out the calculations presented upon the 
monuments, had reached a plane of mental achievement where they were 
dealing with periods of time far beyond the finite, so far as their own epoch 
was concerned. 
The Calendar Round date in 1 u. h. concludes the calculations presented 
on this altar. Of the 15 glyph-blocks containing some 52 individual glyphs, 
17 have been completely deciphered, and the significance of 6 others at 
least partially understood; that is to say, from one-third to one-half of this 
text has been deciphered. 
The inscriptions on these two altars are so closely related that the one 
on Altar H’ has been repeated in the following summary to facilitate study: 
Altar H’: a—pa 1. h., Gd u. h. 9.12. 8. 3. 9 8 Muluc 17 Mol 
jo. bo, ka Grn Ka leh: 2.13. 4. 4 backward 
IauS he 9. 9.14.17. 5 6Chicchan 18 
Kayab 
Lb |. h., Ma u. h. 1.14.11 forward from 
Initial Series 
mb |. h., Na u. h. 9.12.10. 0.0 9g Ahau 18 Zotz 
mal. h. End of a lahuntun 
Altar I’: abu.h., aa I. h. 11.14.11 to Initial Series of 
Altar H’ 
B-E 9.13. 0.0.0 8 Ahau 8 Uo 
Hb u. h., Hal. h. 7. 1.13.15. 0 9 Ahau 13 Cumhu 
fe Z10.16..4: G. “forward 
1,u. h. g.12.10. 0. 0 g Ahau 18 Zotz 
A study of the above summary at once raises the question as to whether 
both of these altars may not date from the same period. Indeed, the style 
and treatment of the two monuments 1s so similar, and the calculations pre- 
sented upon them are so mutually interdependent, that it is difficult to 
believe they could have been made at different times, even only Io years 
apart. 
In this connection two possibilities would appear to present themselves, 
either both altars date from 9.12.10.0.0, a date found on both (7. ¢., 9 Ahau 
18 Zotz), or else both date from 9.13.0.0.0, the Initial Series terminal date on 
Altar I’, and the latest found on either. 
If the former were the date of these altars, it is possible that both may 
have been originally associated with Stela 6, the date of which is also 
9.12.10.0.0. In this event the record of 9.13.0.0.0 on Altar I’ is to be inter- 
preted in the same way as the same date on the altar of Stela I, namely, 
as the record of the current katun-ending, and not as the contemporaneous 
date of the altar. 
A better interpretation, however, is to assign both to 9.13.0.0.0, and not 
to regard either as having been formerly associated with Stela 6. The latter 
date, moreover, was a katun-ending, a suitable time for the erection of two 
altars, which as we have already seen, appears to have been done at the 
