HISTORY OF COPAN DURING THE OLD EMPIRE. 423 
This first settlement appears to have been located at Group 9g, and here 
for the next 200 years all the monuments were probably erected, and here 
may be said to have been the capital, the religious and administrative center 
of the region. 
Judging from the provenance of the early monuments, it appears as 
not improbable that Group 9 was the only settlement in the valley during 
the Early Period, at least the only one which attained sufficient wealth and 
importance to have been able to execute and erect monuments. During 
this period the valley was doubtless put under cultivation from end to end, 
and reserves of wealth and experience accumulated which were to be utilized 
in the great expansion that took place at the beginning of the next period. 
Each lahuntun and katun as it passed was probably marked by the erection 
of a corresponding stela at Group 9, and monument by monument we may 
see reflected the increasing prosperity of the tribe. Perhaps as early as 
9.7.0.0.0 the priests attempted to portray the human figure on the fronts 
of their stele (Stela 18), and before the end of the period, 1. ¢., after 9.9.0.0.0, 
the all-glyphic stela began to pass out of fashion. 
We must believe that the rulers of the tribe during this period, whether 
hereditary or elective, civil, military, or ecclesiastic in character, were wise 
administrators, who occupied themselves in developing the resources of the 
surrounding region, in building and embellishing their capital, and in gen- 
erally extending their influence and the cult of their tribal deities. Finally, 
by the end of the period, the tribe had become so powerful and wealthy that 
it was able to expand the sphere of its activities beyond Group g and to 
establish other important settlements throughout the valley. 
THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 
The Middle Period at Copan opens with a hiatus in the sequence of the 
monuments, followed by a tremendous outburst of sculptural activity all 
over the valley in 9.11.0.0.0, on which latter date no less than 7 different 
stele were erected at 6 different groups. 
After Stela P in 9.9.10.0.0, a period of decentralization seems to have 
set in, during which the intensive occupation of the whole valley seems to 
have taken place, and 30 years later, almost as if by common consent, the 
current katun-ending, 9.11.0.0.0, was commemorated by the erection of 
stele at 6 different groups: Group I at the eastern end of the valley, 14 
kilometers distant from Old Copan; Group 2 on the north bank of the Copan 
River, 8.5 kilometers distant; Group 3 on the summit of a hill on the eastern 
side of the valley, 4.5 kilometers distant; the group which was later to become 
the Main Structure, where two stele bearing this date were erected, 2 kilo- 
meters distant; Group 12 on the summit of a hill at the western end of the 
valley, 2.5 kilometers west of Old Copan, and Group 13 in a little side-valley 
entering the main valley from the north, 3.5 kilometers west of Old Copan. 
Groups 7, II, 14, and 15 may have been founded at this same time, although 
no dated monuments have been found at any of them. (See plate 3.) 
