258 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
count. If this is true, the terminal date, 6 Cimi 4 Tzec, can be shown by 
calculation to have been 9.15.6.14.6 6 Cimi 4 Tzec, as follows: 
Date 22 9.14.15. 0.0 11 Ahau 18 Zac 
11.14.6 
Date.23 _9.:15:) 6.14.6 6 Cimi 4 Tzec 
The great importance of this latter date lies in the fact that it is the only 
date in the Maya inscriptions, so far as the writer knows, which appears to 
establish a direct chronological connection between two different cities. In 
addition to its occurrence here at Copan, it is found on four different monu- 
ments at the neighboring city of Quirigua, some 60 kilometers to the north 
(see platest)). | 
(1) Stela J, south side H2, G3 
(2) Stela F, west side Br1d, Arza 
(3) Stela E, west side a13b, B13a 
(4) Zoémorph G, east side Nb u. h., Na |. h. 
We have already seen that it was a general custom among the Maya 
to erect monuments at the ends of the successive hotuns in the Long Count, 
and since the same chronological system obtained throughout the entire 
southern Maya area, it follows that many cities have monuments recording 
the same hotun-endings without further evidence of direct historical con- 
nection.! But Date 23 clearly does not belong to this latter category, as it 
does not fall at the end of a hotun or any division thereof, and indeed, so far 
as its position in Maya chronology is concerned, it is quite fortuitous. Like 
our own Fourth of July or Thirtieth of May, it closes no unit of the calendar, 
and is therefore probably to be regarded as the date of some actual historical 
happening or astronomical event. 
The occurrence of such a date at two adjacent cities, moreover, strongly 
suggests that it marks an event common to the history of both; in a word, 
it is the first indication from the chronological side that more than one city 
participated in the same historical event. While the nature of the event 
corresponding with this important date yet remains to be determined, there 
are some reasons for believing that it was of greater importance to Quirigua 
than to Copan. This matter will be more fully set forth at the close of this 
discussion. (See pp. 272, 273.) 
Date 24. 
Date 24 is an Initial Series expressed by full-figure glyphs, being one of 
the only five known (p. 231, and plate 27). Gordon was the first to call 
attention to it,’ and he figures several of its glyph-blocks (1902, plate 12, k, 
blocks 1, 2 and 3; L, block 1; and 0, block 4). There are at least two others, 
however, Fragments 4 and 9, plate 27, which have not been published here- 
tofore. The eight fragments recovered are arranged as shown in plate 27, 
the only doubtful one being No. 4, the uinal-sign, which may not belong 
to this Initial Series at all. From this plate it will appear that several blocks 
are missing. ‘lo begin with, there was one block (or two) to the left of Frag- 
1 See Appendices VII and VIII. 2See Gordon, 1902, p. 184. 
