444 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
Piedras Negras captives bound with ropes and stripped of all clothing and 
ornaments appear huddled together before a ruler seated upon a throne 
with attendants standing on either side (Stela 12); or again, an elaborately 
dressed ruler with spear in hand and an attendant standing behind him 
faces 6 kneeling captives or warriors, also armed with spears (Lintel 2). 
These two monuments, and particularly Stela 12, have been interpreted, 
and probably correctly, as records of specific conquests, the captives repre- 
senting the fallen rulers, cities, or tribes with their corresponding name- 
glyphs engraved on their shoulders or thighs. But at best these are only 
sporadic cases, and an overwhelming majority of the Old Empire sculptures 
portray religious ceremonies, deities, rulers, and priests. 
Again, the lines of migration followed by the Nahua tribes south 
through Central America, the Mexican group in southwestern Chiapas, the 
Pipil in eastern Guatemala and western Salvador, the Niquiran in southern 
Nicaragua, and even the Sigua on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica would 
always appear to have been along the Pacific Coast-plain and never along the 
Atlantic side of the Continental Divide, south of which the Old Empire Maya 
never established themselves. That is, there is no archeological evidence 
that the two races ever came into contact, except possibly at Copan on the 
southeastern frontier and from Ocosingo northward in the extreme west. 
Moreover, the closing dates in the different Old Empire cities, as we have 
seen, themselves indicate that they were not abandoned simultaneously, 
but that the period of exodus covered more than a century, beginning in the 
extreme west (Palenque) and south (Copan) and moving eastward and 
northward, the last cities to be abandoned being the group in northeastern 
Peten—Flores, Ucanal, Benque Viejo, Naranjo, Nakum, Tikal, and Uaxac- 
tun—and Seibal in central Peten. If conquest by some other people had 
been the cause of their downfall, it would probably have been effected more 
rapidly, not dragging on for more than a century, and some record of it, 
in all likelihood, would have appeared on the monuments, particularly those 
of the northeastern cities, which were the last to be abandoned. 
It has been shown in the preceding section that after the close of the 
Old Empire in 10.2.0.0.0 the whole Peten region was abandoned, and prob- 
ably remained without inhabitants, entirely deserted by man, for more than 
800 years, until about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the north- 
eastern corner, the region around Lake Peten Itza, was colonized by the 
Itza moving south from Chichen Itza and out of Yucatan after the fall of 
Mayapan about 1447 A. D. 
There are no remains in all this region of any people or civilization other 
than the Maya—nothing earlier! and certainly nothing later, and if the 
Maya had been driven from their homes by foreign conquerors, it would 
appear inevitable that such conquerors would have left behind them some 
trace of their occupation of the country, however slight, in the monuments or 
1 As already noted on page 438, note 1, Mercer found similar conditions in the northern part of the region 
covered by the New Empire. 
