THE ORIGIN OF THE MAYA CIVILIZATION. AIl 
ually under the Old Empire became the finest expression of the aboriginal 
American mind. 
In some such a way, then, the Maya civilization had its origin, presum- 
ably somewhere on the Gulf Coast-plain of Mexico, probably between the 
Grijalva and Panuco Rivers, 18° to 22° north latitude, and the writer 
believes, although this point is yet incapable of direct proof, some time toward 
the end of the second or the beginning of the first millenium before the birth 
of Christ. Finally, although the earliest dated text, the Tuxtla Statuette 
(circa 100 B. C.), is doubtless at least a thousand years later than this begin- 
ning, it is probable that future excavations in this region, archeologically so 
strategic in the solution of the Maya problem, will bring to light still earlier 
texts that will carry us back still nearer to the beginning of the Maya hiero- 
glyphic writing, which, so far as the calculations involved in the Initial Series 
proper are concerned, is as perfected and as finished on the Tuxtla Statuette 
as in the latest Initial Series known, some 1,100 years later.! 
Turning next to the consideration of the third line of 
evidence mentioned on page 402, namely, the provenance 
of the earliest dates in the Maya area proper, that is, exclud- 
ing the Tuxtla Statuette, which we have just seen was found 
without this region, we at last reach firm historical ground. 
The next earliest surely dated contemporaneous texts 
in the Corpus Inscriptionum Mayarum are the following: 
1. The Leyden Plate, Py v ead: Bp ep ie 
2.. Uaxactun, Stela 9, 8.14.10.13.15 
3. Copan, Stela 24, Q,°2.10:10."0 
4. Likal, Stela 3, 8 ray TA w Mal 8) 
5. Tikal, Stela ro, OSs TIF 2. +O 
6. Uaxactun, Stela 3, oes eh ois) ta, 
7. Copan, Stela 15, GA, Vr O40 
8. Tikal, Stela 17, GS 6s. O11 
g. Copan, Stela 9, 9.6.40) 6.00 
In addition to these, there are 16 other monuments at 
Copan and Io others at Tikal which are earlier than the ear- 
liest monument now known at any third site, namely, Stela 
25 at Piedras Negras, recording the hotun-ending 9.8.15.0.0. 
Analyzing, first, the provenance of these earliest dated 
texts, we find that the earliest one of all is on a small neph- D2) 
rite celt, the Leyden Plate (see fig. 65), found just west of |Z): foe 
the mouth of the Motagua River near the Rio Graciosa. It aq fs 
is only 21.6 cm. long, 7 to 8.5 cm. wide, and 0.2 to 0.5 cm. 
thick, in fact, so small an object (much smaller and lighter 
than the Tuxtla Statuette) that it could easily have been 
carried long distances with little or no inconvenience. When Fic. 65.— Inscription 
this is taken into consideration with the fact that jade (neph- 0°” Leyden Plate. 



1The latest Initial Series known is that on the back wall of the Temple of the Initial Series at Holactun (Xcalum- 
kin), Yucatan. As shown by the writer elsewhere (1918a, p. 274), this probably records the date 11.2.8.4.9, although 
10.9.8.4.9 is not an impossible reading. 
