CORRELATION OF MAYA AND CHRISTIAN CHRONOLOGY. Sol 
If 10.3.0.0.0 were the Initial Series corresponding to the last of these three, then 
by counting back through the sequence 23 katuns from 1398.991, we will reach 
Katun 8 Ahau, 945.592 A.D., as the beginning of Cycle 9, 7. ¢., 9.0.0.0.0 8 Ahau 
13 Ceh. This is true because 9.0.0.0.0 is just 23 katuns earlier than 10.3.0.0.0. 
That is to say, under this correlation, all the cities of the Old Empire (see figure 
69) flourished approximately from 950 to 1350 a. D.; further, that Chichen Itza 
was discovered in 7.15.0.0.0 6 Ahau 18 Chen, 25 katuns earlier; and finally, that 
the mythological beginning of the u kahlay katunob goes back to 7.1.0.0.0 8 Ahau 
18 Xul, 14 katuns still earlier. 
This correlation is impossible on the face of it. It would make the Old Empire 
cities, Copan, Tikal, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, etc., the contemporaries 
of the New Empire cities, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Mayapan, Izamal, Kabah, Labna, 
etc., an impossible condition from the archeological evidence. It would make the 
discovery of Chichen Itza, a New Empire city, date from Cycle 7, or more than 
two centuries before the earliest contemporaneous date known anywhere in the 
Corpus Inscriptionum Mayarun, 7. ¢., the Tuxtla Statuette, and finally, it would 
carry the record of historical events in Yucatan back to a period (Cycle 7) when 
it is extremely doubtful whether the Maya chronological system had yet even been 
devised. Soimpossible are these conditions, from the historic as well as the archzo- 
logic point of view, that this correlation may be rejected outright. 
If 10.3.0.0.0 was the Initial Series corresponding to the second of these three 
Katuns 1 Ahau (7. ¢., Katun 1 Ahau, 1142.722 a. D.), then the beginning of Cycle 9 
would fall in Katun 8 Ahau, 689.323 A. D., and the discovery of Chichen Itza in 
8.8.0.0.0 6 Ahau 18 Kayab and the beginning of the whole series in 7.14.0.0.0 
8 Ahau 18 Kankin. This would make the Old Empire cities flourish from 
approximately 700 to 1100 A. D.;it would carry the discovery of Chichen Itza 
back to within 35 years of the date of the Tuxtla Statuette and actually 130 years 
previous to the date of the earliest stela known, Stela 9 at Uaxactun, and would 
make the series of katuns begin in 7.14.0.0.0 8 Ahau 18 Kankin, probably before 
the Maya chronological system had been devised, as already noted. 
While somewhat better than the first correlation, this second is open to the same 
objections, and gives rise to too impossible conditions, from the historic as well as 
the archzologic point of view, and it also may be rejected in the present connection. 
This leaves us but one more Katun 1 Ahau during which Chichen Itza is said to 
have been occupied, namely, Katun 1 Ahau, 630.184 A. D., and substitution of the 
Initial Series 10.3.0.0.0 for this katun leads to a surprising result at the beginning of 
the series, as well as giving rise to minor archzologic agreements, all tending to 
indicate that this is the true correlation. 
If 10.3.0.0.0 were the Initial Series corresponding to Katun 1 Ahau, 630.184 
A.D., then the first katun in the series on page 499, Katun 8 Ahau, 176.785 a.D., will 
be none other than g.0.0.0.0 8 Ahau 13 Ceh, the beginning of Cycleg. Here, indeed, 
is a remarkable coincidence if nothing more, namely, that by the use of this cor- 
relation the first katun in the series is found to be 9.0.0.0.0, or the beginning of the 
cycle during which the Maya attained their first great cultural brilliance, and a 
period which ever afterward, and especially in more decadent later times, must have 
appeared to them to have been the Golden Age of their race and civilization. 
The entry against this date—the departure from the land of Tulapan and the 
house Nonoual from Zuiva at the west—is almost certainly of a mythological char- 
acter, as Brinton has pointed out.!_ These proper names belong to the Quetzalcoatl 
myth in Aztec mythology, Tulapan (literally, “Standard of Tula’’) being the name 
1Brinton, 1882, pp. 110-113. 
