CHAPTER V. 
CONCLUSIONS. 
GENERAL COMPARISONS. 
The inscriptions of Copan are more numerous than those of any other 
Maya site, or indeed of any other three combined, constituting possibly 
as high as 40 per cent of the Corpus Inscriptionum Mayarum, and in their 
chronologic range covering 335 years, or the greater part of the Old Empire. 
These two factors—the large amount of material available for study and the 
long period covered by the dated monuments—thus make Copan the best 
fitted of all the Maya cities at which to investigate the chronology of the 
Old Empire. 
In the important field of the Initial Series alone, for example, as will be 
seen from the following table, Copan stands preeminent, having about one 
third of all the Initial Series known—sg9! out of 177—and as many as those 
of her three nearest competitors in this respect combined, namely, Piedras 
Negras, Quirigua, and Naranjo: 
ona eo. ee ROP Jakactun nth... wo Oven panto... ... 2 |-Chichen Itza..7. 1 
Pieisadsweprasy ee solilikal. Wks. is,, 6 |'Ocosingo) ...:.4 Pa liolactin 23.0.4. I 
‘POET STE reg OR a Pea rontadenaee..0 5. )¢0) Pabellon. 4. (1) Laluum.... +... I 
MTANIO.. a. = - DL eSNG ey tee 5) El Cayo. 2... 1 | Leyden Plate... 1 
axchilansics.iec TOMAS KUIE. & Cems. Piivasiawe se. Jol) Luxtia statuette, ' 
Palenque....... Cua ital Ge naC. on. 2a LOS Higoss .. 4-6 I (re ham 177 
All the features noticeable in the inscriptions of the other cities, 
moreover, are found at Copan, and some of them, indeed, may have been 
inaugurated here. Take, for example, the custom of erecting the stele at 
the ends of even periods of the Long Count, instead of at odd times, a prac- 
tice which became the controlling factor in the erection of monuments 
throughout the Maya area, and persisted for more than thirteen centuries. 
It will be seen in a later section, page 396, that the three earliest 
Initial Series known, those on the Tuxtla Statuette, the Leyden Plate, and 
Stela 9 at Uaxactun, do not conform to this practice, but that, on the con- 
trary, they record dates which do not stand at the ends, even of tuns or 
uinals of the Long Count. 
The first certain example of this practice is on Stela 24 at Copan, in 
9.2.10.0.0, although, in all probability, Stela 20 at the same site records the 
next previous lahuntun-ending, 9.1.10.0.0. The earliest known date at 
Tikal, Copan’s only great contemporary at this time, 9.2.13.0.0 on Stela 3, 



1This number, moreover, does not include those Initial Series on the Hieroglyphic Stairway that were 
destroyed, of which there must have been at least ro. 
391 
