. Ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America. Indians of Mexico; Indians of Central America. THE MAY \\ CIVILIZATION L29 monuments in their artistic order we find that the in- scribed dates in the great majority of cases fall in the same order. This leads us to conclude that the dates are practically contemporaneous with the carving and setting up of the monu- ments. Now the above is especially true when the in- scription gives a simple In- itial Series date. When more than one date is given the historic one appears in most instances to be the latest, but in a few instances it ap- pea
. Ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America. Indians of Mexico; Indians of Central America. THE MAY \\ CIVILIZATION L29 monuments in their artistic order we find that the in- scribed dates in the great majority of cases fall in the same order. This leads us to conclude that the dates are practically contemporaneous with the carving and setting up of the monu- ments. Now the above is especially true when the in- scription gives a simple In- itial Series date. When more than one date is given the historic one appears in most instances to be the latest, but in a few instances it ap- pears to be a specially em- phasized intermediate date. In addition, then, to con- temporaneous dates there are some that refer to the past and others that refer to the future. Some writers have assum- ed that the stelae and other inscribed monuments were primarily time markers set up at the end of hotun (or five year) periods. This seems an unnecessarily narrow view. We can demonstrate that some inscriptions deal with astronomical facts covering long stretches of time. It is also apparent that many of the sculptures represent conquests and it is extremely likely that portraits of actual rulers are to be seen in certain carvings. It would be too much to ex- pect events to happen regularly at the end of time periods and as a matter of fact we find at different cities ated date- that do not occupy such Late Sculpt urc from Chichen Itza. The headdress resembles that worn by the rulers on the highlands of Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Spinden, Herbert Joseph, 1879-1967. New York [American Museum Press]
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Keywords: ., book, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectindiansofmexico
