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468 N o t e s o f M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 110 May 15, 1952 The Introduction of puuc Style of Dating at yaxchilan J. Eric S. Thompson At Y5-X6 of the upper step of the southeast doorway of Structure 44, Yaxchilan, there is a date which is quite clearly 2 Chuen 14 Mol, and which almost certainly has the Long Count position 9.14.16:15.11 2 Chuen 14 Mol (Note 71). This date is one day before that on Stela 18: Standard System Puuc System Str. 44 (9.14.16.15.11) 2 Chuen 14 Mol (2 Chuen 13 Mol) (1) Str. 18 (9.14.16.15.12) 3 Eb 15 Mol 3 Eb 14 Mol Data in parentheses are supplied. Although the Long Count position of 2 Chuen 14 Mol is reasonably secure, that of 3 Eb 14 Mol is open to question. Miss Proskouriakoff (1950:198) dates Stela 18 by trait incidence at 9.16.14.0.0 plus or minus two katuns. It is, however, well known that there is a tendency at several Maya cities to inscribe important dates on monuments erected from one to three katuns later. Thus the date 9.14.16.15.12 3 Eb 14 Mol might have been carved on a monument erected at: 9.16.0.0.0 or 9.17.0.0.0, particularly if it had the important role of marking the introduction of the short-lived system of Puuc dating at Yaxchilan. However, the association of the date on Stela 18 with that in Structure 44 rests on far stronger evidence than the fact that they represent sequent days in the two systems. Each date is followed by six identical glyphs, only one of which occurs in any other text at Yaxchilan, although in most cases the main elements are not uncommon at Yaxchilan and In a study of dating which yields a month coefficient of a Calendar Round date one less than in the normal system (e.g., 1 Kan 1 Pop in place of the normal 1 Kan 2 Pop) it was noted that this style is followed on two monuments at Yaxchilan (Note 79). To describe that system of dating the term Puuc way suggested because from present evidence the style is most prevalent in that area, and possibly originated there. At least, the earliest known examples (9.12.0.0.0 and 9.13.0.0.0) are on monuments at the Puuc site of Edzna. The two monuments atYaxchilan with Puce-style dates are Stelae 18 and 20, and in the paper cited the senior author noted that both monuments have certain stylistic affinities with Campeche and Yucatan. Many years ago Teeple showed that the introduction of a new method of recording lunar data was marked at Piedras Negras, Naranjo, and perhaps Yaxchilan by recording on different stelae the lunar calculations for a given date in both the new and the old system. The purpose of this paper is to examine evidence for analogous double dating at Yaxchilan to record the intrusion of the Puuc system at that site. Stela 18, Yaxchilan, carries the date 3 Eb 14 Mol, a clear example of the Puuc system. The middle and right dots of the day coefficient are how somewhat irregularly shaped, but that all three are numerical is not, I believe, open to serious question. Indeed, Bowditch (1901:2:19) and Morley (1938:2:34), who had no axes to grind, read the coefficient as 3, although they wrongly identify the day as Cimi. The Introduction of Puuc Style of Dating at Yaxchilan 469 elsewhere. The glyph found on other monuments is the first of the six, and follows immediately 14 Mol in both texts. The main sign is the burden element, to which are attached the comb and lunar affixes as postfixes. The compound, which also occurs in the codices, commonly follows Calendar Round dates at Yaxchilan, and probably means the charge (fortune or burden) of the count. That the comb here, as elsewhere, has the value xoc, “count,” is shown by the fact that at L’3 on Lintel 33 a head, almost surely that of the xoc fish, replaces the comb in the...

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