The two rows at the top are as usual much obliterated, which is the more to
be deplored since they consisted of five calendar dates, which would have
contributed materially to the comprehension of the entire section.
Fortunately, however, one of these dates is preserved complete, and we are
able to see in what relation it stands to the rest. Thus we find in the
third column of page 63 the date XIII Imix 9 Uo. It comes in the year 12 Ix
and represents the number 1,523,921 (or a number separated from it by a
multiple of 18,980). Now 1,523,921 = 4175 × 365 + 46 and = 5861 × 260 + 61.
This agrees with the lower number inserted in red:--1,538,342 = IV Ik 15
Zac (12 Muluc), which comes later by 14,421 = 39 × 365 + 186 and = 55 × 260
+ 121. 121, however, is the difference between both XIII Imix and IV Ik and
the days XIII Akbal and IV Kan in the last column of page 62. If we set
down with these two numbers, those of the normal date just preceding and
the normal date next following, we have
1,518,400 = 80 × 18980.
1,523,921,
1,538,342,
1,556,360 = 82 × 18980.
This is a period of 37,960 = 2 × 18,980 days. It is possible that at some
future time an indication of such a transition from one Katun to the other
will be found in the writings. Now these two top lines contain two dates;
on page 62 we find 13 Ceh, and on page 63, 13 Xul, but nothing further is
to be learned from this than that one or the other of the day-signs, 2, 7,
12, 17, must have been set down in the effaced indication of the position
in the Tonalamatl. All else is obliterated. From the third to the seventh
row of these five columns it is all extremely simple. The third row
consists only of five signs for beginning, the fourth, of five for end, the
sixth of B's sign five times and the seventh of the elongated head _q_ four
times. But in the fifth, two deities alternate, one is apparently male and
the other female; the god is in columns 1, 3 and 5 and the goddess in 2 and
4; the god probably belonging to the days III Chicchan and the goddess to
XIII Akbal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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