GENERAL COMPARISONS. 393 
Seibal and Nakum, where the earliest dates are 9.16.0.0.0 and 9.17.0.0.0 
respectively, and at neither of which is there a single Initial Series known; 
and by the end of the Old Empire the Initial Series had disappeared every- 
where except at Tikal (Stela 11). 
In the New Empire, barring the three Initial Series at Chichen Itza 
(Temple of the Initial Series), Holactun (Temple of the Initial Series), and 
Tuluum (Stela 1), Initial Series dating had disappeared entirely, to be 
replaced by Period Ending dating and especially by tun-ending dating. 
The Carnegie Institution Central American Expedition of 1918 estab- 
lished this latter fact from its investigations in Yucatan, and further, that it 
was the unusual “winged-Cauac”’ variant of the tun-sign, which was used 
in these late New Empire tun-ending dates;! and very recently the writer 
has discovered this same variant on an inscribed peccary skull from Tomb 1 
at Copan (see page 380), mentioned above, which proves that use of this 
sign in this connection extended back to the Early Period of the Old Empire, 
or that it was in use for more than a thousand years. 
The development of the art of stone-carving among the Maya may best 
be studied at Copan in all its stages, save only the very beginnings. As 
already noted in Chapter II (see pages 54, 76), and to be described further ina 
later section, the earliest style of glyph delineation is found most extensively 
at Tikal. This is characterized by 
1. Very low, flat relief. 
2. Irregular, non-rectangular outlines of the individual glyph-blocks. 
3. General absence of specialized elements to denote the different signs. 
These early characteristics are best exemplified in the Tuxtla Statuette 
and the Leyden Plate, but omitting both from consideration on the ground 
that they are smaller antiquities and not large monolithic monuments, the 
same characteristics are to be found on the earliest monuments, as, for 
example, Stela 9 at Uaxactun, and Stele 4, 7, 8,9, and 13 at Tikal, and 
Stela 20 at Copan. Indeed, the outlines of the glyphs on Stela 9 at Uaxactun 
and Stele 8 and 9 at Tikal are so irregular as forcibly to suggest the carving 
of the Leyden Plate, where this characteristic is so pronounced. 
It is suggested in a later section that the origin of the Maya hieroglyphic 
writing, or even its transfer from an earlier medium such as wood to stone, 
need not be looked for at Copan, where the scarcity of inscriptions (indeed 
only one, Stela 20) which present this most reliable of all the criteria of 
antiquity, is probably to be interpreted as indicating that the Maya graphic 
system was developed elsewhere. 
But except for these very earliest stages of the hieroglyphic writing on 
stone, Copan is the best place at which its evolution may be traced, because 
of the greater abundance of material here than anywhere else. 
The rigid rectangular outlines of the glyph-blocks with corners only 
slightly rounded seems to have been developed first at Copan (Stela 24), as 

1 Morley, 19184, pp. 272-274. 
