THE HOTUN. SR 
[Katun] 11 Ahau: in the time of its beginning the stone of Coloxpeten was 
taken; in this katun died the water-bringer Napotxiu, 
in the first tun of [Katun] 11 Ahau; it was also in this 
katun that the Spaniards first arrived here in this land, 
in the seventh year of Katun 11 Ahau; also Christianity 
began in the year of fifteen hundred and nineteen, the 
year of our Lord 1519. 
{[Katun] 9 Ahau: no stone was taken at this time; in this katun first came 
the bishop Brother Francisco Toral; he arrived in the 
sixth tun of Katun g Ahau.! 
The idea conveyed by this passage is that a group of towns possibly joined in 
putting up the same katun-marker, first at one of their number and then at another; 
thus both this and the Nakuk Pech quotation clearly refer to the erection of monu- 
ments at the katun-endings. 
The Spanish authorities are no less explicit, Bishops Landa and Cogolludo 
both making unmistakable reference to the same custom. Says Landa in this 
connection: 
“There was discovered in the plaza of that city [Mayapan] seven or eight stones, each 
10 feet in length, round at the end, and well worked. These had some writings in the char- 
acters which they use, but were so worn by water that they could not be traced. More- 
over, they think them to be in memory of the foundation and destruction of that city. 
There are other similar ones, although higher, at Zilan,? one of the coast-towns. The natives 
when asked what these things were, replied that they were accustomed to erect one of these 
stones every twenty years, which is the number they use in counting their ages.’ 
And Cogolludo has the following: 
“Their lustras having reached five in number, which made 20 years, which they call 
a katun, they place a graven stone on another of the same kind laid in lime and sand in the 
walls of their temples and the houses of the priests, as one still sees to-day in the edifices 
in question, and in some ancient walls of our own convent at Merida, about which there 
are some cells. In a city named Tixhualatun, which signifies ‘place where one graven stone 
is placed upon another,’ they say are their archives, where everybody had recourse for 
events of all kinds, as we do to Simancas.’’! 
The foregoing quotations, the writer believes, leave little room for doubt but 
that the practice of erecting monuments at the ends of successive katuns of the 
Maya chronological era persisted down to the time of the Spanish Conquest, and, 
what is even more important, they corroborate and explain the archzologic evi- 
dence and constitute nothing less than direct documentary proof of the former 
existence of this custom. 
Reviewing Maya history from its beginnings, we may conclude that although 
this custom was an early development of their civilization, there was a time when 
monuments and smaller objects were not dedicated at the ends of even periods of 
their chronological era. 


1Brinton, 1882, pp. 171, 172. 
2In February 1918, the writer found here parts of two stele, which may have been the very ones referred to 
by Landa in the above passage, another instance of the reliability and trustworthiness of his statements. Only the 
lower part of Stela 1 has been recovered. It presents a band of 5 glyphs at the bottom, the first 2 of which record 
the Calendar Round date 7 Muluc 2 Kayab. Above is a crouching human figure upon whose back stands the prin- 
cipal figure; the break occurs at the knees of the latter, and the rest of the stela is still missing. The fragment 
recovered is built into a back wall of the cabildo, on the southern side of the plaza, and some local artist has mod- 
eled in stucco the missing parts of the legs, torso, head, and arms, reconstructing the figure as that of a Mexi- 
can or German (?) soldier, helmet on head, and gun, with fixed bayonet, in hand. Stela 2 is built into a wall on 
the north side of the church-yard. It is much more effaced than Stela 1 and all that can be distinguished is a 
standing human figure with elaborately plumed head-dress, and 7 glyph-blocks, 4 before and 3 behind; al! are 
too effaced to decipher. Both these stele seem to have been found in excavating a platform which runs in front 
of a high, long mound, just west of and facing the church. Stela 1 is said to have been built into the back wall 
of the cabildo in 1900. 3Landa, 1881, p. 75. 4Cogolludo, 1688, p. 186. 
