Deducting from this number all the Calendar Rounds possible, 71 (see Table
XVI), and applying rules 1, 2, and 3 (pp. 139, 140, and 141, respectively)
to the remainder, we reach as the terminal date 8 Ahau 13 Pop. Now let us
examine the text and see what is the terminal date actually recorded. In
A4b the student will have little difficulty in recognizing the profile
variant of the day sign Ahau (see fig. 16, _h', i'_). This at once gives us
the missing value for the kin coefficient in B3, for the day Ahau can never
be reached in an Initial Series if the kin coefficient is other than 0.
Similarly, the day Imix can never be reached in Initial Series if the kin
coefficient is other than 1, etc. Every one of the 20 possible kin
coefficients, 0 to 19, has a corresponding day to which it will always
lead, that is, Ahau to Cauac, respectively (see Table I). Thus, if the kin
coefficient in an Initial-series number were 5, for example, the day sign
of the resulting terminal date must be Chicchan, since Chicchan is the
fifth name after Ahau in Table I. Thus the day sign in Initial-series
terminal dates may be determined by inspection of the kin coefficient as
well as by rule 2 (p. 140), though, as the student will see, both are
applications of the same principle, that is, deducting all of the 20s
possible and counting forward only the remainder. Returning to our text, we
can now say without hesitation that our number is 9.8.9.13.0 and that the
day sign in A4b is Ahau. The day coefficient in A4a is just like the katun
coefficient in A2a, having the same determining characteristic, namely, the
forehead ornament composed of one part. A comparison of this ornament with
the ornament on the head for 8 in A2a will show that the two forms are
identical. The bifurcate ornament surmounting the head in A4a is a part of
the headdress, and as such should not be confused with the forehead
ornament. The failure to recognize this point might cause the student to
identify {185} A4a as the head for 1, that is, having a forehead ornament
composed of more than one part, instead of the head for 8. The month glyph,
which follows in B4b, is unfortunately effaced, though its coefficient in
B4a is clearly the head for 13. Compare B4a with the uinal coefficient in
A3a and with the heads for 13 in figure 52, _x-b'_. As recorded, therefore,
the terminal date reads 8 Ahau 13 ?, thus agreeing in every particular so
far as it goes with the terminal date reached by calculation, 8 Ahau 13
Pop. In all probability the effaced sign in B4b originally was the month
Pop. The whole Initial Series therefore reads 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 Pop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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