3) From these two statements the third follows. The distance from 1,352,400
to 1,366,560 is 14,160. This contains first the 14040, in which both the
Tonalamatl and the old official year of 360 days meet, and second 120,
which is again the interval between I Ahau and IV Ahau. But 14,160 is also
equal to 38 × 365 + 290, and the interval between 10 Kan and 9 Ix is of
course 38 years, and from 18 Zip to 8 Cumhu it is 290 days.
The numbers with which we have had to do here will again occupy our
attention further on, especially the 2920 and the 37,960 on pages 46-50,
the 11,960 and 115 on pages 51-58, and the 14,040 on page 73.
That these computations are not confined to the Dresden Manuscript is
proved by the cross of Palenque, where we find in signs A B 16 precisely
the date I Ahau 18 Zotz, a Tonalamatl before 18 Kayab, in D 1 C 2 exactly
the difference 2200 and in D 3 C 4 the date IV Ahau 8 Cumhu. This is in
favor of the theory that our Manuscript did not originate far from
Palenque.
Now, the question finally arises as to what may, strictly speaking, be
considered the significance of these numbers, dates and differences.
In the first place, I would recall the fact that the dates of the monuments
of Copan and Quirigua, which doubtless refer to present time, are in the
neighborhood of 1,400,000. The high numbers of our Manuscript, so far as
they are in question here, form first a group, which extends from about
1,200,000 to 1,280,000, and then there is a blank, and next a large group
extending from about 1,350,000 to 1,480,000, then another blank and lastly
a group extending from about 1,520,000 to 1,580,000. If we assume that our
Manuscript belonged to about the same date as these inscriptions, then the
three numbers discussed here would extend over a past period lying about
160-170 years back, when a new period of importance had begun probably
dating from the immigration of the Aztecs into Mexico, which they placed in
the first half of the 14th century (see "Weltall," Vol. 5. pp. 374-377).
Now, however, the number 1,366,560 contains the statement that 3744 years
ago (each year having 365 days) an event must have occurred, which can
hardly be anything other (according to the belief of the Mayas) than the
creation of mankind. Hence all the _historical_ dates of the Mayas were
computed from this starting-point. But how did this event come to have the
date IV Ahau 8 Cumhu?
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