INSCRIPTIONS OF THE GREAT PERIOD. 241 
line ab represents the western slope of Mound 26 as found by Owens in 1892 
cd, the original position of the stairway; and fg the 15 consecutive steps on 
the surface of the slope, which were mistaken for the original stairway at the 
outset of the work. These, however, were not in situ, as the excavation 
proved, but had slid down from some position nearer the top of the stair- 
way, designated in figure 37 as wy. 
There is left, then, of the original stairway, as a result of this landslide, 
two sections of 15 consecutive steps each,!' ce and fg (1. ¢., xy), figure 37, and 
two other sections of unknown lengths, ex and yd, which have fallen to 
the bottom and are hopelessly confused. The fragments of these were 
carefully removed by the Fourth Peabody Museum Expedition from the 
débris at the base of the stairway and were laid in the court, where they may 
be seen to-day in indescribable and, the writer fears, inextricable confusion, 
the wreckage of America’s greatest aboriginal effort in the science of writing. 
The fifteen consecutive steps not 7m situ but in sequence (see fg, figure 
37) were carefully removed block by block and reassembled in the court 
below in their relative positions.” These, together with the 12 or 15 in situ, 
are reproduced in plates 5 and 6 of Gordon’s monograph on the Hieroglyphic 
Stairway. In plates 12 and 13 some of the disconnected fragments are 
shown, although these are a very small fraction indeed of the rest of this 
inscription. It is apparent from the foregoing that we have preserved in its 
original order only about one-third of the inscription, 7. ¢., 30 out of 90 
steps, and even these are not all consecutive, as we have seen, half coming 
from the bottom of the stairway and half from some unknown position higher 
up. Since, from the very nature of the case, the lowest steps were built 
first, and moreover, since they are the only ones now in situ, this section 
will be described first. 
Date 1.3 
The first three steps (Gordon, 1902, plate 6, A, B, and C) show no 
decipherable glyphs, but the fourth (D) opens with an Initial Series intro- 
ducing glyph at a. (See plate 26,4.) Then follows in B-p, 1) the Initial 
Series 9.5.19.3.0 8 Ahau 3 Zotz: 
A Initial Series introducing glyph 
Ba 9 cycles 
BD 5 katuns 
ca 1g tuns 
cb 3 uinals 
Da o kins 
pb 8 Ahau? 
Ib 3 Zotz 


1 Gordon reproduces only 12 steps in situ (Gordon, 1902, plate 6) as against the 15 of which he speaks on p. 157, 
making a total of 27 instead of 30 consecutive steps. This is doubtless due to the fact that the three top steps 
found in situ, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth from the bottom, not counting the plain bottom step, were 
so fragmentary that it was not thought worth while to publish them. 
2 Gordon, 1902, p. 157. 
3 Gordon also calls this Date 1 in his monograph on the stairway. (Gordon, 1902, p. 169.) 
4 Since each step is given a different letter, no vertical numerations of the glyph-blocks, as a1, BI, CI, etc., is 
necessary, and such numbers will therefore be omitted. 
5 The kins and day of this date are here recorded on the same block of stone. At the two ends, 1. ¢., before the 
kin-sign and after the day-sign, are two unsculptured bars from 5 to 6 cm. wide. It would almost appear as though 
these ends had never been finished. 
