282 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
make one of the order next higher; hence there are 20 cycles in a great-cycle 
in the inscriptions, as well as in the codices. 
The Secondary Series recorded at B10-B14 1s composed very clearly of 
o kins, o uinals, 10 tuns, 19 katuns, 17 cycles, and 14 great-cycles, or 
14.17.19.10.0.0 in the commonly accepted notation. The first points to be 
determined in deciphering this long number are: (1) its starting-point, and 
(2) the direction of the count. In regard to the former, one fact at least 
appears reasonably certain, that the Initial Series terminal date is either the 
starting point or closing date. ‘Two conditions tend to establish this point: 
(1) the Initial Series terminal date 1 Ahau 3 Zip is the only date on the monu- 
ment; and (2) the day 1 Ahau 1s actually repeated below the last glyph of the 
number at B16 with but one glyph intervening. It seems probable, there- 
fore, that this number either stretches backward from 9.16.10.0.0 1 Ahau 3 Zip 
into the remote and doubtless, even to the Maya when they inscribed this 
text, mythological past, or that it reaches forward to an equally far distant 
and hazy future. Which did the sculptor intend here? 
With but few exceptions, the overwhelming practice in Secondary Series 
is to count the number forward from some earlier date to the contempora- 
neous date of the monument or to some date anterior to it. Therefore, if 
the usual practice obtains in the present case, 14.17.19.10.0.0 is to be counted 
forward from some date in the remote past to 9.16.10.0.0, which the writer 
believes to be the case here. The whole Maya concept of time demanded that 
they should look forward and not backward. Their time-periods were recorded 
in terms of elapsed time, like astronomical hours, and the exigencies of such a 
system kept the ancient priests continually with their backs to the past. In 
the few prophetic texts which have been found, the future date was in no case 
more than 150 years off when it was recorded, and on the other hand, several 
Secondary Series and even Initial Series and Period Ending dates are known, 
recording dates so remote that they could only have been of mythological 
or astronomical significance even when they were inscribed.’ If the over- 
whelming weight of antecedent probability counts for aught, this Secondary 
Series could only have been counted backward from 9.16.10.0.0, that is, 
forward from some date prior thereto. If this is true, as the writer believes, 
it-is obvious that this number reaches back to a date far earlier than the 
starting-point of Maya Chronology. This, however, is by no means without 
parallel elsewhere, the Initial Series on the tablet in the Temple of the 
Cross at Palenque being another case in point. 
The first question, therefore, in deciphering this date is, what was the 
number of the great-cycle in which Cycle 9 fell, and, so far as the writer 
knows, there is only one monument in the whole Maya area which indicates 
the current great-cycle of the historic period, namely, Stela 10 at Tikal. 


1 Dates of this character are the Initial Series on the Temples of the Cross, Foliated Cross, and Sun at Palenque; 
the Secondary Series on Altar 2 at Piedras Negras and on Stela N and C and Altar I’, at Copan, and the period- 
ending date on Stela C at Quirigua. In all these cases much later dates designate the times these monuments were 
severaily erected. 
