Of these, the first only claims our attention here. The trinal superfix in A1 (fig. 60), as its name signifies, is composed of three parts, but, unlike other forms of this element, the middle part seems to be nothing more nor less than a numerical dot or 1. The question at once arises, can the two flanking parts be merely ornamental and the whole element stand for the number 1? The introducing glyph at the beginning of this text (not figured here), so far as it can be made out, has a trinal superfix of exactly the same character--a dot with an ornamental scroll on each side. What can be the explanation of this element, and indeed of the whole glyph? Is it one great-great-great-great cycle--a period twenty times as great as the one recorded in A2, or is it not a term of the series in glyphs A2-A9? {126} The writer believes that whatever it may be, it is at least _not_ a member of this series, and in support of his belief he suggests that if it were, why should it alone be retained in recording _all_ Initial-series dates, whereas the other three--the great-great-great cycle, the great-great cycle, and the great-cycle signs--have disappeared. The following explanation, the writer believes, satisfactorily accounts for all of these points, though it is advanced here only by way of suggestion as a possible solution of the meaning of the Initial-series introducing glyph. It is suggested that in A1 we may have a sign representing "eternity," "this world," "time"; that is to say, a sign denoting the duration of the present world-epoch, the epoch of which the Maya civilization occupied only a small part. The middle dot of the upper element, being 1, denotes that this world-epoch is the first, or present, one, and the whole glyph itself might mean "the present world." The appropriateness of such a glyph ushering in every Initial-series date is apparent. It signified time in general, while the succeeding 7 glyphs denoted what particular day of time was designated in the inscription.