1a and 1b are effaced on page 61; they probably contained a sort of
superscription as on the inscriptions. 2a is effaced on page 61, but the
sign may be recognized from page 69 as that with which on page 46 the
series of the twenty deities begins after 236 (4 × 59) days. On pages 61
and 69 it takes the place of a face, to which I am inclined to assign the
numerical value 4. In 2b, which is C's head, I am inclined to look for the
value 2,880,000 = 20 × 20 × 20 × 360 days, which is not at all
inappropriate for C, as the sign of the north pole around which everything
revolves. I therefore propose to read 2ab as 4 × 2,880,000 = 11,520,000.
3b, it seems to me, resembles the sign for 144,000, which I found in the
inscriptions and which is repeated in 12a. It must, however, be left
undecided by what this same number in 3a is to be multiplied; 3a is
repeated besides in 8a and 13b. 4a contains the head of E, and 4b that of
the Moan. 4a seems to refer to 5a, and 4b to 5b. But 5a and 5b are the same
sign, which, inserted between the 144,000 and the 7200, can scarcely mean
anything else than the so-called Ahau-Katun of 6 × 18,980 = 113,880 days.
Have we two such periods here? Were they designated by consecutive numbers?
Now comes the 7200 in 6a, and the number 8 with E's head and the inserted
sign for 360 days in 6b (on page 69 without E's head), therefore 8 × 360 =
2880. Seler also thinks 7a has the numerical value 16 (Einiges mehr über
die Monumente von Copan, etc., page 217); 7b belongs to 7a. 7b, a Kin with
a I and a suffix and a leaf-shaped prefix, is inserted between the 360 and
20. What can it mean? Hardly the 260, for this is represented elsewhere
(_e.g._, page 24) by the thirteenth month Mac. Or can it possibly refer to
the month Yaxkin (days 120-140)?
8b is a Chuen sign, which, with its prefix (superfix on page 69) always
denotes twenty days in the inscriptions. It is multiplied with the same
unknown head in 8a, which we have already met with in 3a. 9a contains H's
head, and 9b is an unknown head with inserted Kin; the two signs must of
necessity indicate the single days still to be added to the period, though
as yet we do not know how.
The normal date IV Ahau 8 Cumhu then follows in 10ab. If it refers to the
signs just now discussed, then they must denote a number of about the same
magnitude as the serpent numbers. 653 or 654 times 18,980 seems to suggest
itself, but we shall have more to say later on this subject. My efforts to
reach a definite result here have failed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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