ill 
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE GREAT PERIOD. 293 
48 cm. for the middle section, the total length of this altar must have been 
over I.5 meters. After the six glyphs in the Maudslay photograph is a 
vertical band. Then came the middle section with four glyph-blocks, and 
then the right end with four or six more, making 14 or 16 on a side and 2§ 
or 32 for the entire altar. 
Concerning the date of Altar B’, little can be said. One side (see plate 
22, a) opens with a Calendar Round date 10? 8 Zac? This reading, however, 
is so doubtful that it is unsafe to attempt to fix it in the Long Count. If it 
were 10 Ahau 8 Zac, a reasonable reading would be 9.18.10.0.0 10 Ahau 8 
Zac, the same date as that probably recorded upon Altar G,, but there is too 
much uncertainty here about the month-sign to accept this reading. There 
are no other decipherable glyphs on the altar. 
Altar C’, as it now stands, is fragmentary, one end being gone. The 
death’s head at the left in plate 22, b, isrestored. The glyphs are clear for the 
most part, and though a number are of familiar aspect, none are yet decipher- 
able. No trace of a date appears, and we are forced to conclude that it 
must have been recorded on the still missing right end (plate 22, dD). 
These two altars are clearly companion pieces and both doubtless 
date from the same time. ‘The writer has assigned them to the lahuntun 
9.16.10.0.0-9.17.0.0.0, on the grounds of their provenance, although at least 
one of them, B’, may be two katuns later, 7. ¢., 9.18.10.0.0. 
ALTAR D’. 
Provenance: At the western end of the Court of the Hieroglyphic 
Stairway in front of Mound 7 of the Acropolis, Main 
Structure. (See plate 6.) 
Date: 9.16.13.9.0 13 Ahau 8 Zac (?). 
Text, (a) photograph: Mauda. 1889-1902, vol. 1, plates 9, b, 113, dD. 
(b) drawing: figure 45. 
Ibid., vol. 1 of text, p. 16; zbid., and vol. 1, plates 9, b, 114, a 
Reference: Ibid., vol. 1 of text, pp. 68, 69. 
This altar stands at the base of Mound 7 at the western end of the Court 
of the Hieroglyphic Stairway. It is a flat, oblong block of stone about 
2 meters long, 1 meter wide, and 30 cm. high. Over the top is stretched a 
grotesque monster, likened by Maudslay to a frog. (Compare also the top 
of Altar T.) The front is sculptured with the familiar double-headed 
dragon with a human head in one of its mouths. The adjacent side to the 
left and the back are inscribed with glyphs, 2 glyph-blocks on the former and 
5 on the latter, or 7 for the entire text. The remaining side is occupied by 
the head of the frog on the top, which stretches over this end. 
This text is of particular interest because of the fact that all of its glyphs! 
are full-figure forms, in which respect it is like Altar W’; in fact, as will appear 
in the discussion of Altar W’, these two monuments are very similar in size, 
shape, and glyphic treatment. Unfortunately neither has an Initial Series, 

1 That is, all that could be full-figure forms. A few, Ea, Fa and Ga, for example, are geometric glyphs, which 
do not appear to have ever had full-figure variants. 
