INSCRIPTIONS OF THE GREAT PERIOD. nee 
records the first date (9.16.12.5.17) 6 Caban 10 Mol and the head of the 
second figure with the glyph in its hand (also in the same line but reversed 
in order) records the second date (9.17.12.5.17) 4 Caban 10 Zip just 
1 katun later; in other words, the time separating the two figures is just 
I katun. It is significant, therefore, in view of this fact, that the second 
figure is seated on a glyph actually recording “the End of a katun.” (See 
fig. 47.) This, it is true, is not the end of a specific katun in the Long Count, 
but only the end of 7,200 days from some previous date, namely, the date 
expressed by the first figure. In view of this fact, may not the glyph on 
which the first figure is seated have some generalized meaning, 
such as “Here begins the count’? 
This closing date fell between the dates.of Stele C and H on 
the one hand, and Stele F and 4 on the cther, being 117 days after the former 
pair and 143 days before the latter. 

Stele Cand HH 9.17.12. 0.0 4 Ahau 18 Muan 
Rime (117 days) 
Altar T e172 6.176 .a°Caban 10 Zip 
7-3 (143 days) 
pte beandi4 |) 9.17.12.13..0. 4 Ahau 13 Yax 
One of the dates reached by the calculations on the neighboring monu- 
ment, Altar U, we have already seen (page 301), is the previous katun anni- 
versary of 9.16.12.5.17 6 Caban 10 Mol, namely, 9.15.12.5.17 8 Caban 10 Mac. 
In other words, on the two monuments there are three dates just 1 katun 
apart each, viz: 
pitart 6.75212, 5.17 8 Caban.10 Mac 
L, O. O..'O 
Mieot i 6.160.12.5,17 6 Caban ro Mol 
Eon. 6 
Pitan 1) @.6.17-12..5.17 4 Caban fo Zip 
Although both of the dates on Altar T are doubtless correctly deciphered 
as given, the question which of the two indicates the contemporaneous 
date of the monument yet remains unanswered. The writer believes the 
latter date was present time when this altar was dedicated, for the following 
reasons: 
1. It is the later date of the two, and therefore the more likely to have been 
the contemporaneous date, a priori. 
2. When Maudslay first photographed Altar T there was still standing under 
it a block of stone, Fragment E’, which clearly records part of an Initial Series 
reading 9 cycles, 17 katuns, 7, 12, or 17 tuns, the uinals and kins missing. ‘This 
is apparently the beginning of the Initial Series suggested above for this date. 
Even the most remote values of the tun coefficient possible here, 7 or 17, could 
only have been 5 years earlier or later than 9.17.12.5.17, the date suggested above 
for 4 Caban 10 Zip. 
This point, z. ¢., the date of Fragment E’, upon which rests the determin- 
ation of the exact position of 6 Caban 1o Mol in the Long Count, is so 
important that it will be taken up in full under the description of that 
