Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices: Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-85, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1888, pages 253-372Thomas, Cyrus
History
Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices: Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-85, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1888, pages 253-372
Thomas, Cyrus
Codex Dresdensis Maya; Maya language
Adding together the numbers and casting out the thirteens, thus, XIII + 9
- 13 = IX; IX + 5 - 13 = I, &c., the connection is seen to be regular.
The final red numeral is XIII, the same as that with which the series
begins, and the sum of the black numbers, 9, 5, 1, 10, 6, 2, 11, 7, 3,
12, 8, 4, 13, is 91, a multiple of 13. The middle line of numerals also
connects with the XIII attached to the bottom symbols of the day columns;
and the upper line of numerals connects with the III attached to the top
symbols of the day columns.
Plates 70 to 73 present some peculiarities difficult to account for. That
these pages belong to the same type as 62, 63, and 64 cannot be doubted,
and that as a general rule they are to be read from right to left is
easily proved; but this method does not seem to be adopted throughout,
the order being apparently reversed in a single series.
The aboriginal artist has apparently made up these pages from two older
manuscripts or changed and added to his original. The last two columns of
Plate 70 and first five of 71 appear to have been thrust in here as an
afterthought or as a fragment from some other source, forming apparently
no legitimate connection with the series to either the right or to the
left of them. It is true, as will be shown, that there is some connection
with the lowest series on the right, but it would seem that advantage was
here taken of accidental correspondence rather than that this
correspondence was the result of a preconceived plan.
Commencing in the lower part of the middle division of Plate 73 and
running back (to the left) to the sixth column of 71 and returning to the
lower part of the lower division of 73 and ending with the sixth column
of 71, is the following series. The columns are given in the order in
which they stand on the respective plates, but the plates are taken in
reverse order:
TABLE XXIII.--_Table giving comparison between Plates 71, 72, and 73._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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