408 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
once the astronomical data upon which they were based had been accumu- 
lated in sufficient quantities to establish therefrom certain dependable 
astronomical laws. And possibly this invention may have taken place not 
long prior to 8.6.2.4.17, the date on the Tuxtla Statuette, since no certain 
earlier contemporaneous date has yet been found in the Maya writing." 
The hypothesis outlined above rests on the three following postulates: 
1. That the date on the Tuxtla Statuette is 8.6.2.4.17, 
2. That this date is the contemporaneous date of the specimen, 
3. That the specimen was made in the general region where it was discovered, 
i. €., that it was not brought from somewhere else by trade. 
Concerning the first, the writer has no doubt as to its accuracy. The 
Initial Series number 8.6.2.4.17 leads to the terminal date 8 Caban o Kankin, 
and the day-sign coefficient 8 appears regularly in its proper place below 
this number, attached to a glyph the main element of which has unfor- 
tunately been effaced. (See fig. 63.) This is too close an agreement to 
be the result of coincidence only, and practically establishes, first, that 
the number is an Initial Series, and second, that it reads 8.6.2.4.17, even 
though the corresponding month-part of the Initial Series terminal date 
does not appear in the rest of the text, at least in a recognizable form. Possi- 
bly the month-part may have been suppressed altogether, as was not infre- 
quently the case; for the discussion of which point see pages 138, 139, 157. 
Concerning the second postulate above, since 8.6.2.4.17 is the only date 
on the specimen, the logical assumption is that this date was present time 
when it was inscribed, namely, that it is the contemporaneous date of the 
inscription. 
The third postulate above is less certain than the other two, although 
the writer believes it is probably correct. The Tuxtla Statuette is small, 
however, 16.5 cm. high and 9.5 cm. maximum diameter, and could easily 
have been carried long distances in trade, straying far from its original place 
of execution. Still, it was found near San Andres Tuxtla, and perhaps the 
burden of proof rests on those who would argue that its original provenance 
was elsewhere. 
Weighing all the evidence, therefore, and giving due weight to the fact 
that we have a Maya-speaking people 400 to 500 kilometers still farther to 
the northwest (see fig. 64), it seems not improbable that the Maya were in 
the San Andres Tuxtla region in 8.6.2.4.17, when the Tuxtla Statuette was 
made, and that they may have come hither from some region farther north 
and possibly from as far north as the present habitat of the Huasteca. 

1 Seler (1902-1908, vol. 11, p. 30) assumes that the Maya graphic system, chronology, and calendar must have been 
developed at least two centuries before its first record on stone: ‘““This would place..... the nephrite plate 
from the Rio Gracioza (?) [the Leyden Plate] approximately in the year goo [A. p.] and according to my previous 
assumption fix upon the year 700 as the latest limit, which we should have to assume for the discovery of the 
elements of the writing, the invention of the calendar, and the age of the kingdom of Tollan.” It should be noted 
that at the time Seler wrote the above passage (1902) the Leyden Plate was the earliest dated object known. Aside 
from the inaccuracy of his equivalent dates in Christian chronology (see Appendix II, pp. 528, 534), this minimum 
limit of 200 years appears too great to the writer, since the date on the Tuxtla Statuette could conceivably, 
although improbably, have been recorded during the lifetime of the inventor of the graphic system and calendar. 
