328 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
ably recorded to indicate that the count had to pass through Katun 17 in 
order to reach the contemporaneous date of the monument. In other words, 
Katun 17 was the nearest katun-ending before the date recorded. 
A similar case has already been noted on the lower hieroglyphic step 
of Mound 2, where the count starts with Katun 15, followed by the date 
1 Ahau 8 Xul. This, we have seen (pp. 234, 235), did not indicate that 
Katun 15 ended on 1 Ahau 8 Xul, but that Katun 15 was the katun-end- 
ing preceding this date, 9.15.17.0.0 1 Ahau 8 Xul.' It will be noted that 
in both these cases the katun-sign is unaccompanied by an ending-sign. 
This is as it should be, however, if the interpretations suggested are correct, 
since in neither case is the katun recorded the contemporaneous date, the 
latter in each case being one of the subdivisions of the following katun. 
After 9.15.7.6.13 5 Ben 11 Muan in ci, p1 the count seems to have 
passed through the important date 9.16.12.5.17 6 Caban 10 Mol on the front 
of the altar, and through 9.17.0.0.0 13 Ahau 18 Cumhu in cé to 9.17.5.0.0 
6 Ahau 13 Kayab in po, £1, the current hotun-ending. This hotun-ending, 
however, is not the final date on Altar Q, as there is a short number of 3.4 
(64 days) in ES, carrying the count that distance beyond 9.17.5.0.0; and this 
is followed by the date 5 Kan 13 Uoin £6. ‘The latter is obviously incorrect, 
since a day Kan can only have a corresponding month coefficient of 2, 7, 12, 
or 17. Probably 12 is the value originally intended here, for if 3.4 is counted 
forward from 6 Ahau 13 Kayab, the date reached will be 5 Kan12 Uo2 It 
is a curious coincidence that the two errors in this text, the kin coefficient 
in a6 and the month coefficient in £6 |. h. are the exact reverse of each 
other, the former being a 12 for a 13 and the latter a 13 for a 12. This 
coincidence may possibly explain their presence here, that is, the sculptor 
may have forgotten himself, carving 12 in a6 instead of in £61. h., and 13 
in E61. h. instead of in a6. 
The record of a date later than the hotun-ending the monument was 
erected to commemorate, while not unknown, is rare enough to cause 
comment. Several other examples, both here at Copan and elsewhere, are 
described in connection with the next monument, Altar W’, which also has 
this same feature. ‘The practice seems to have been fairly general, and in 
all the examples there cited the count overlaps the current hotun-ending by 
less than a year. Doubtless 9.17.5.3.4 was a date, which it was desired to 
commemorate on Altar Q, and its distance beyond the current hotun-ending 
being so short, the count was allowed to lap over by that much, without 
destroying the character of Altar Q as a hotun-marker. A summary of the 
text follows. 

1 The writer suggests with some hesitation a third case which may have an analogous construction, namely, 
Stela C at Nakum. In this text there is the Calendar Round date 2 Ahau 8 Yaxkin at a1, A2, and following in as, 
rotuns. This date occurs at 9.19.10.1.0 2 Ahau 8 Yaxkin, and the 10 tuns in As may record the fact that a Tun 
10 had just passed when it was recorded, 1.¢., 20 days (1 uinal) before. 
2 The cast in the Peabody Museum shows the month coefhcient is 13. This is obviously an error in the 
original, since the day Kan never could have had a month coefficient of 13 in any month; #2 is the nearest value 
possible, and, moreover, is indicated by the accompanying calculations, 5 Kan 12 Uo being exactly 3.4 later than 
6 Ahau 13 Kayab, as noted above. 
