[Illustration: FIG. 72. The tun, uinal, and kin coefficients on Stela H,
Quirigua: _a_, Tun coefficient; _b_, suggested restoration of the uinal and
kin coefficients like the tun coefficient.]
In spite of some weathering, the day part of the terminal date appears in
glyph 7 immediately after the kin glyph in 6. The coefficient, though
somewhat eroded, appears quite clearly as 2 (2 dots separated by an
ornamental crescent). The day sign itself is the profile variant for Ahau
shown in figure 16, _h', i'_. The agreement of {194} the day recorded with
the day determined by calculations based on the assumption that the kin and
uinal coefficients are both 0, of itself tends to establish the accuracy of
these assumptions. Passing over 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, we reach in
15 the closing glyph of the Supplementary Series, and in 16 probably, the
month glyph. This form, although badly eroded, presents no features either
in the outline of its coefficient or in the sign itself which would prevent
it representing the month part 13 Tzec. The coefficient is just wide enough
for three vertical divisions (2 bars and 3 dots), and the month glyph
itself is divided into two parts, a superfix comprising about one-third of
the glyph and the main element the remaining two-thirds. Compare this form
with the sign for Tzec in figure 19, _g, h_. Although this text is too much
weathered to permit absolute certainty with reference to the reading of
this Initial Series, the writer nevertheless believes that in all
probability it records the date given above, namely, 9.16.0.0.0 2 Ahau 13
Tzec. If this is so, Stela H is the earliest hotun-marker at Quirigua.[168]
The student will have noticed from the foregoing texts, and it has also
been stated several times, that the cycle coefficient is almost invariably
9. Indeed, the only two exceptions to this rule in the inscriptions already
figured are the Initial Series from the Temples of the Foliated Cross and
the Sun at Palenque (pl. 12, _A_ and _B_, respectively), in which the cycle
coefficient in each case was 1. As explained on page 179, footnote 1, these
two Initial Series refer probably to mythological events, and the dates
which they record were not contemporaneous with the erection of the temples
on whose walls they are inscribed; and, finally, Cycle 9 was the first
historic period of the Maya civilization, the epoch which witnessed the
rise and fall of all the southern cities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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