288 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
will be 3 Yaxkin; in other words, the tun coefficient must be 2 and the uinal 
coefficient 6. Although this proves that the date on the south band is the 
starting-point and the date on the east band the terminal date, it does not 
fix either in its proper position in the Long Count. Turning to page 286, 
where the four possible values of the former date are given, let us choose 
the third value there, because it is the nearest to the Initial Series of Stela N, 
being in fact less than a year later. If 9.16.10.16.15 11 Men 13 Pop is the 
starting-point of this count, its terminal date can be shown to have been 
9.16.13.4.15 6 Men 3 Yaxkin, as follows: 
South band, 1st and 2d glyph-blocks, 9.16.10.16.15 11 Men 13 Pop 
West band, 2d glyph-block, 2.600 
East band, 2dand3d_ glyph-blocks, 9.16.13. 4.15 6 Men 3 Yaxkin 
As will appear later, these two dates, though less than two and a half 
years apart, inclose within this brief span a date recorded more often at 
Copan than any other, namely, 9.16.12.5.17 6 Caban 1o Mol. Because 
of this fact and also because the latest of these dates is only a little over 
three years later than the date of Stela N, it is probable that both are cor- 
rectly deciphered as given, and the doubtful day-sign in each is Men. A 
summary of the calculations on both the stela and its pedestal follows: 
Stela N, east side a1—Az7, A1s, (1417.11.19). 9.16.10. 0. © I Anan" ip 
Stela N, west side B2—B6 I4 .17.19.10. 0. 0 backward 
(TLL1s 4).11.17. 0. 0.°6 13 Alauliageae 
Pedestal, south side, 1st and 2d glyph-blocks, 9.16.10.16.15 11 Men 13 Pop 
Pedestal, west side, 2d glyph-block, Qe Vind 
Pedestal, east side, rst and 2d glyph-blocks, 9.16.13. 4.15 6 Men3 Yaxkin 
Stela N is the last monument of the stela type at Copan which is a 
hotun-marker, and indeed the next to last stela upon which an Initial 
Series is recorded at all. “Toward the close of the Great Period there devel- 
oped everywhere a tendency toward greater brevity in recording dates, in 
consequence of which dating by Initial Series began to go out of fashion.’ 
Copan, if not the leader in this movement, was certainly one of the first 
cities at which the tendency made itself felt, and with the single exception 
of the Initial Series on Stela 4 and the incomplete Initial Series on Frag- 
ment E’, the Initial Series of Stela N is the latest here. 
Stela N is the next hotun-marker after Stela M, and while it is the 
last stela used for that purpose, the practice of marking the hotuns was by 
no means discontinued, the later hotuns being marked either by temples or by 
smaller monuments, usually of the altar type. 
The four last stele in point of time, Stele C, H, F, and 4, were not used 
to record the current hotun-endings, but to present other and less clearly 
understood calculations. 


1 The first four coeficients are supplied from the values given on Stela 10 at Tikal for the four higher time- 
periods. The first is doubtful. 
2 The original incorrectly has 8. 
3The almost complete absence of Initial Series dating in Yucatan will be taken up in Chapter V and in 
Appendix II. 
