434 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
These chronological data are shown graphically in figure 69, where the 
vertical lines indicate the successive hotun-endings of Maya chronology 
from 8.14.0.0.0 to 10.3.0.0.0, every fourth line, corresponding to a katun- 
ending, being heavier. As in the case of figure 68, the dates of these several 
hotuns appear above, only those of the second and fourth hotuns, the 
lahuntuns, and katuns respectively being written out. The brackets above 
indicate the corresponding periods of the Old Empire, that at the extreme 
right, beginning after 10.2.0.0.0, belonging to the second or Transitional 
Period of the New Empire. (See Appendix II, p.505.) 
The names of the different cities of the Old Empire at which dates have 
been deciphered appear in the column at the left, and their corresponding 
periods of occupation, based upon the earliest and latest contemporaneous 
dates at each, are shown by the heavy black horizontal lines running across 
the figure. In cases where the earliest dates are doubtfully deciphered, as, 
for example, at Copan (Stela 20), La Honradez (Stele 2, 3, 6, 8, and 9), and 
Itsimte (Altars 1 and 2), or where the earlier dates have not been deciphered 
at all, and the earlier character of the monument or monuments rests on the 
stylistic criteria, as, for example, at Tikal (Stele 4, 7, 8, and 9), heavy 
broken lines carry back the solid lines to the supposed starting-points. 
The real difficulty in presenting these data is not in the horizontal 
arrangement, since the earliest and latest dates are fairly certain at most of 
the cities, but in the vertical arrangement, that is, the order in which the 
cities should follow each other, whether chronologic or geographic. This 
matter is further complicated by the fact that eight of the cities in figure 69 
have only a single date deciphered at each—Los Higos, Aguas Calientes, Tzen- 
dales, El Cayo, Yaxha,! Ucanal, Benque Viejo, and Chichen Itza;? and there 
are six others, which have an interval of a katun or less between their earliest 
and latest dates—Quen Santo, Cancuen, La Mar, Itsimte, Ixkun,and Flores. 
For the purposes of this investigation it has seemed best to follow the 
chronological arrangement in figure 69, because it shows more clearly than 
the geographic arrangement the growth and expansion of the Maya civiliza- 
tion during the Old Empire; it fails, however, to bring out the progressive 
abandonment of the cities, beginning in the west and south and gradually 
drawing into the northeast and north until the only Old Empire cities which 
wereoccupied at the beginning of Cycle 10 were Flores, Tikal, Nakum, Ucanal, 
and Benque Viejo in northeastern Peten and Seibal in central Peten. 
In using figure 69 it should be remembered that, as plotted, any monu- 
ment recording a hotun-ending is assumed to have covered that entire hotun; 
similarly, monuments recording lahuntun and katun-endings are assumed 
to have covered the corresponding lahuntuns and katuns respectively; that 


1 There are other monuments at Yaxha, Ucanal, and Benque Viejo, but they are in such bad condition that 
the writer has been unable to date them approximately, even upon stylistic grounds. Thus, for example, there 
are certainly much later monuments at Yaxha than g.11.5.0.0, which itself is a doubtful reading, and there are 
surely earlier monuments at Ucanal than 10.1.0.0.0; in fact, the monument recording this latter date (Stela 3) is 
probably the latest at this site. 
2 There are also other dates at Chichen Itza, but they are later and fall in the New Empire. 
