528 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
dates of many of the Old Empire cities, Stele 1, 8, 9, 10, and 11 at Seibal, Stela 11 
at Tikal, Stela 1 and 2 at Flores, Stela 1 at Ucanal, Stela 1 at Benque Viejo, and 
Stela D at Nakum, and it may be rejected outright on historical grounds. 
Nor is Seler’s correlation much better, being open to the same objection in only 
aslightly lesser degree. After side-stepping the question several times, even going 
so far as to assert that “‘it is therefore no longer possible to establish a connection 
between our chronology and the dates on the monuments,””! he proceeds to fall in 
line with the rest of the German school and to make a correlation which is almost 
as improbable as the one proposed by Férstemann: 
“At the end of my second treatise published in the 32nd volume of the Zeitschrift fiir 
Ethnologie, p. 188 et seq. [see also Seler, 1902-1908, vol. 1, pp. 835, 836], I referred to the fact 
that the region where I obtained the Sacchana [Quen Santo] fragments of stela was aban- 
doned about the middle of the sixteenth century, so that these fragments were hidden at 
that time in the cave where they were subsequently found. But undoubtedly these frag- 
ments, like all these monuments and the stele of Copan and Quirigua, formerly stood ex- 
posed. Now since the material is a chalky limestone of slight endurance, incapable of 
resisting the elements for a long time, it can be assumed as in a measure probable that these 
_most recent of the known dated monuments were erected about the middle of the fifteenth 
century. This would place the golden age of Quirigua [1. ¢., 9.15.15.0.0 to 9.19.0.0.0] between 
the end of the thirteenth and the end of the fourteenth centuries, the nephrite slab from the 
Rio Graciosa (?) [7. ¢., the Leyden plate, 8.14.3.1.12] approximately in the year goo, and 
according to my previous assumption fix upon the year 700 as the latest limit which we 
should have to assume for the discovery of the elements of the writing, the invention of the 
calendar, and the age of the Kingdom of Tollan.’””? 
On the basis of Seler’s statement that 10.2.10.0.0 (Stela 2 at Quen Santo) fell 
about the middle of the fifteenth century, 9.0.0.0.0 would have fallen 443 years 
earlier, or about 1007 A.D. His introduction of the kingdom of Tollan here is purely 
gratuitous, having nothing whatever to do with the subject in hand. It serves to 
illustrate, however, Seler’s strong Mexican bias in approaching all Maya problems, 
and his constant tendency to look for Nahua origins of purely Maya cultural pheno- 
mena, whereas the truth is that such borrowings as are found, were all the other 
way, 1. ¢., by the Nahua from the Maya, save only during the Toltec Period of the 
New Empire, after 1182-1201, when a late Nahua influence made itself strongly 
felt at certain New Empire cities, notably Chichen Itza. 
Finally, we have the correlation of Lehmann, proposed more recently than any 
others of the German school, but almost as inaccurate as the preceding: 
“There is an interval of 350 years between the earliest and the most recent dates of the 
monuments of Quirigua, while the famous nephrite slab of Leiden (from the borders of 
British Honduras and Guatemala) is some 560 years older than the most recent of all the 
dated monuments hitherto known, namely, the stela fragment of Sacchana [Stela 2 at Quen 
Santo]. 
“The majority of the dates of the monuments of Copan and Quirigua are, however, 
included in a period of about 180 years, while the oldest known dated monument, Stela C 
at Quirigua,’? 1s appreciably nearer in time to the Leiden slab than the other more recent 
monuments with inscriptions. Since the ruins where these monuments occur were in this 
condition for the greater part, at the time of the congquzsta, I conclude from this fact, and also 
from the good state of preservation of the easily weathered stone material of the monuments, 
that the Golden Age was in the tenth to eleventh centuries after Christ.’”4 
1See Seler, 1902-1908, vol. 1, p. 790. See also ibid., pp. 835, 836. *See ibid., vol. 11, pp. 29, 30. 
3Lehmann falls into error here, believing the Initial Series 9.1.0.0.0 on the west side of this monument de- 
clares its contemporaneous date. This is not the case, however, the contemporaneous date being the Period 
Ending date 9.17.5.0.0 on the opposite (east) side, about 320 years later. This latter date places Stela C in its 
proper position (9.17.5.0.0) in the sequence of the Quirigua monuments and not 276 years earlier than the next 
earliest contemporaneous monument there (Altar M, about 9.15.0.0.0). 
4Lehmann, I910, p. 693, note I. 
