438 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
later. Thelatest date in the whole western part of the southern Maya field 
is 9.18.5.0.0 on Stela 12 at Piedras Negras, and about this time, on the evi- 
dence of the dates at least, it is necessary to postulate that the whole western 
region, including Palenque, was abandoned. 
One other event of the Middle Period deserves especial mention because 
of the tremendous influence it was to exert a century and a half later. Some 
time during the closing katun of the Middle Period Chichen Itza was dis- 
covered, thus opening up to the Maya a vast new territory to the north, 
devoid of previous inhabitants! and admirably adapted to their peculiar 
type of civilization. 
With the beginning of the Great Period in 9.15.0.0.0 the horizon of 
Maya history broadens widely, and in the next century twice as many 
cities, in all parts of the southern Maya region, were founded as in the pre- 
vious four centuries. By this time the Maya were a rich and powerful peo- 
ple and the establishment of cities and the erection of temples and monu- 
ments had become, from the technical side at least, an easy matter, and the 
curve of civilization and cultural attainment surged upward. (See also 
figs. 68 and 70.) 
The first city to be founded in the Great Period, based on the monu- 
mental record, was either Seibal, 9.16.0.0.0, in the rich valley of the Pasién 
River in southern Peten, or La Honradez, in the extreme northeastern 
corner of Peten, possibly a little earlier. The earliest surely deciphered date 
at the latter is 9.17.0.0.0, but there are several other monuments there which 
on stylistic grounds are still earlier. 
After 9.17.0.0.0 the new sites follow each other in quick succession, El 
Cayo in 9.17.5.0.0 (?), Los Higos and Ixkun in 9.17.10.0.0, La Mar in 
9.17.15.0.0, and Cancuen and Aguas Calientes in 9.18.0.0.0, when the zenith 
appears to have been reached, more monuments having been found which 
record this last hotun-ending than any other during the Old Empire. (See 
Appendix VIII.) 
After 9.18.0.0.0 no cities appear to have been founded until the last 
group, Flores, Ucanal, and Benque Viejo in 10.1.0.0.0; indeed, there is a 
break in the monumental sequence of the Old Empire after 9.19.10.0.0, 
not a single monument having been discovered which dates from the 30 
years between 9.19.10.0.0 and 10.1.0.0.0.” 
' Mercer (1896, pp. 162-167), in an excellent study of the caves of Yucatan, during the course of which 29 were 
examined and 10 excavated, reaches the firm conclusion that Yucatan had never had an earlier occupation than 
that of the Maya: “But results more important than these had rewarded our close examination of the position 
and contents of the human rubbish heap everywhere present in the caves. Though this layer was the only culture- 
layer our digging had fairly proved at Oxkintok, Loltun, and Sabaka, and though we had often failed to reach rock 
bottom at other caverns, there was nowhere ground for supposing that deeper digging or blasting would have upset 
our inference. An earlier people visiting Yucatan under its present topographical conditions must needs have left 
their trace in the caves, and because the undisturbed earth beneath the culture-layer discovered always failed 
to show trace of any deeper, older, or more primitive human visitor, the conclusion was that no such earlier 
people had seen the region while its stony hills, its torrid plain, and its damp caves were as they now are.” 
2 Tt is a curious fact that, as important as the date 10.0.0.0.0 must have been to the Maya priests, the end of 
the cycle during which they attained such cultural brilliance, not one contemporaneous monument has been found 
dating therefrom. 
