PROBABLE FUNCTION OF THE MAYA MONUMENTS. 399 
Round dates fills about half of the average Maya text, but in some inscrip- 
tions, the proportion will run much higher even than this. Thus, for 
example, on Altar W (see page 365), there are only two glyphs, one record- 
ing the day and the other the month of the Calendar Round date 11 Ahau 
18 Mac; in other words, this text is 100 per cent deciphered. Or again, on a 
round altar near Stela 1 at Yaxchilan there are only eight glyphs, the first 
seven of which record the Initial Series 9.18.3.1.5 11 Chicchan (8 Kankin), 
the month being suppressed. Here only the last glyph is of unknown mean- 
ing, or, in other words, this text is 87.5 per cent deciphered. Such cases, 
however, are rare, and considered as a whole the Maya inscriptions may be 
said to be not more than 50 per cent deciphered. ‘The above texts have been 
cited here only to illustrate the great importance which the Maya attached 
to the element of time, and possibly as tending to indicate that time in its 
different phases may even have been the chief content of their inscriptions. 
The above counts except the Supplementary Series deal with the fixing 
of specific dates in Maya chronology. We will examine some of these further. 
It was stated in the beginning of this section that the earliest Initial 
Series known do not record the ends of even periods of the Long Count, but 
that by the time the Maya had reached Copan this practice had undergone 
a change; and from this time on, the monuments, in the very great majority 
of cases, were erected at the ends of such periods. A further study of the 
six earliest surely deciphered monuments at Copan, Stele 24, 15, 9, 7, E, 
and P, shows that five of them have the period-endings they were erected to 
commemorate recorded as their corresponding Initial Series. 
But in the case of Stela E, for the first time at Copan at least, although 
there is an earlier example at Piedras Negras (Stela 25), we find a slightly 
different condition. On Stela E the Initial Series is neither a hotun-ending 
nor the contemporaneous date of the monument, but an irregular date prior 
thereto, and the contemporaneous date, which is a hotun-ending, is recorded 
by a Secondary Series later on in the text. This new departure from the 
older practice became very popular elsewhere in the Old Empire and is only 
slightly less frequent at Copan, where it appears on the following monuments: 
Stela E, 19, 10 (?), 1, I, 5, A, the west altar of Stela 5, the altar of Stela 1, 
Altar H’, and Altar I’. 
The following examples from Copan, Naranjo, Piedras Negras, and 
Quirigua will illustrate its use: 

Copan, Srexa I. NARANJO, STELA 24, PiepRAs NEGRAS, STELA 3. QUIRIGUA, STELA F. 
9.12.3.14.0 Initial Series 9.12.10. 5.12 Initial Series | 9.12. 2. 0.16 Initial Series | 9.14.13. 4.17 Initial Series 
1. 4.0 bs eialo 12:10: 0 13: 9..9 
9.12.5. 0.0 Period Ending} 9.12.15.13. 7 9.12.14.10.16 9.15. 6.14. 6 
and contempco- Tae se: ck iat dO 9.14.13. 4.17 repeated 
raneous date SESE ia io ee ts! 9.13.16. 4. 6 116.1353 
D412 ats, eles: 9.16.10. 0. O second Initial 
9.13.10. 0. O Period End-| 9.13.19.13. 1 Series and 
ing and con- 4.19 contempo- 
temporane-| 9.14. 0. 0. 0 second Initial raneous date 
ous date Series and 
contempo- 

raneous date 
