HISTORY OF COPAN DURING THE OLD EMPIRE. 425 
been living and prospering for 200 years in one place, the whole valley was 
occupied and a number of smaller settlements established in 9.11.0.0.0, 
among others possibly the Main Structure, since the earliest monuments 
possibly in situ there present this date. Certainly 15 years later a settle- 
ment had been made here, a temple built (Mound 9), and a stela erected 
(Stela 1). 
The fact that the three earliest stele at the Main Structure which can 
possibly be regarded as in situ all occur within 75 meters of each other and 
in the same plaza, suggests that this is the earliest part of the Main Struc- 
ture, and the fact that one of them was built in the foundations of Mound 
9 suggests that Mound 9 probably is the oldest building now extant, in its 
original form at least, at the Main Structure. 
The temple on its summit was excavated by Gordon in 1895 and was 
found to be devoid of sculptural decoration, in which respect it is unlike 
most of the other temples of the Acropolis group at the Main Structure, 
Nos. 11, 21a, 22, and 18 for example, and therefore presumably earlier. 
The chief objection to the hypothesis that Mound g is the oldest build- 
ing now extant at the Main Structure, and that Stele 2, 3, and 1 were the 
first stele erected there, is the possibility that the Acropolis could not have 
been built in the 120 years between 9.11.0.0.0 and 9.17.0.0.0, when it is 
known to have been completed. (See the dates of Temple 21a and the 
Reviewing-stand in the Western Court, pp. 318, 321.) 
The cross-section of the Acropolis exposed by the river has a maximum 
height of 40 meters and shows five or six earlier plaza-levels, mostly in the 
lower half, and below the present floor-level of the Eastern Court. It has 
been argued! that to have built this vast artificial construction a long 
period of time was necessary, several centuries at the very least, but after a 
study of all the evidence available the writer has not reached this conclu- 
sion; on the contrary, he believes that the Acropolis could have been built, 
and in fact probably was built, in the 120 years between 9.11.0.0.0 and 
9.17.0.0.0, when the Eastern and Western Courts were completed. In sup- 
port of this view it may be pointed out that the construction of Mound 26, 
which is an integral part of the Acropolis, was apparently not started until 
9.13.18.17.9, the date on the lowest step of the Hieroglyphic Stairway, that 
is, something less than 50 years before its completion, less than 60 years 
before the completion of Temple 11 nearby, and less than 75 years before 
the completion of the whole Acropolis. 
It has been shown that the Great Plaza was not laid out until after 
9.12.5.0.0 (Stela I) and was probably completed by 9.13.10.0.0 (Stela J), 
25 years later; and, judging from the dates on the Acropolis itself, the com- 
pletion of successive units of that construction is to be measured by decades 
rather than centuries. 
Assuming for the moment that no temples stood on the river-plain here 
until after 9.11.0.0.0, we have Temple 9 being dedicated 15 years later 

1 Gordon, 1896, p. 10. 
