502 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
of the famous Toltec city ruled by the God Quetzalcoatl, Nonoual or Nonohual 
being a mountain near the sacred city where resided the sister of Quetzalcoatl, and 
Zuiva or Zuiua being the topmost heaven in Aztec cosmogony, where the father of 
Quetzalcoatl lived and where that god himself was born. 
These mythological elements, in the opening entry of the u kahlay katunob, all 
of a Nahua nature, the writer believes, were not grafted onto the Maya historical 
records until a very much later time than that to which they purport to refer, 
indeed, not until after 1200 A. D., when the Nahua influence first entered Yucatan, 
and the fact that the entry against the first katun in the series is clearly of a mytho- 
logical character, indicates why the series itself may have been started with 9.0.0.0.0 
8 Ahau 13 Chen as developed by this particular correlation. What more natural 
than that the Maya of the New Empire should have started their chronicles from 
the beginning of that cycle which witnessed their first rise to power, and from a date 
which later must have become associated by them with the very birth of their 
civilization, religion, art, and architecture. This event was later invested with a 
mythological character, as we have seen and assigned a date which fifteen cen- 
_turies later, 7.¢., in Cycle 12, must itself have attained a traditional importance 
second to none, and must have seemed the most appropriate date of all with which 
to begin their chronicles. 
Another strong point in support of the accuracy of this particular correlation 
is the orderly and logical sequence of events, as established by the archeological 
evidence to which it gives rise. For example, it makes the discovery of Chichen 
Itza take place in 9.14.0.0.0 at the close of the Middle Period, and gives sufficient 
time for knowledge of that important event to have spread among the southern cities 
before their abandonment, which began about a century later. (See Chapter V.) 
Again, it makes the Chichen Itza Initial Series contemporaneous with the 
closing dates in the south, thereby agreeing with the archzological evidence at 
Chichen Itza itself, where the Initial Series lintel was found in what is generally 
recognized as having been the oldest part of the city; and it also agrees with the 
documentary evidence, the u kahlay katunob in the Books of Chilan Balam, which 
indicate that Yucatan was first colonized from the southeast, Bakhalal and Chichen 
Itza being the first regions occupied, the former contiguous to the northeastern 
corner of Peten, where the latest Old Empire dates are found. 
Weighing all the evidence, positive as well as negative, historical as well as 
archeological, the writer believes the Katun 1 Ahau which ended in 630.184 A. D. 
in the u kahlay katunob on page 499, was the one in which the Chichen Itza lintel 
was dedicated, and that its corresponding Initial Series was therefore 10.3.0.0.0 
1 Ahau 3 Yaxkin. The principal points leading to this conclusion follow: 
(1) The improbable and unsatisfactory conditions from the historical and archeological 
points of view, to which the other two correlations under this method give rise, as, for 
example, the discovery of Chichen Itza in 7.15.0.0.0 or 8.8.0.0.0, or the placing of the Old 
Empire cities as late as 950 to 1350 A. D. or 700 to IIOO A. D. 
(2) The satisfactory conditions from the historical and archeological points of view to 
which the correlation suggested gives rise, as, for example, the rise of the Old Empire 
about 200 A. D.; the discovery of Chichen Itza about 450 a. pD.; and the collapse of the Old 
Empire and the rise of the New Empire about the same time, 7. ¢. shortly after 610 A. D. 
(3) The significant fact that this correlation of the u kahlay katunob and the Long Count 
gives to the first katun in the record the Initial Series number 9.0.0.0.0, not only a round 
number in the Maya chronological system, but also the beginning of the particular cycle 
during which the Maya first emerged from barbarism to a semicivilized state, and therefore 
a highly appropriate point at which in later times to have begun their historical records. 
(4) The flat contradictions with the archeological evidence developed by the only other 
correlation at all likely to be correct, namely, that suggested by Goodman and supported 
by the tun series on page 66 of the Chronicle of Oxkutzcab, to be examined later. 
-. — vs. ee 
SS SS 
