On each page at the right there is a house, the back wall of which is
always marked with the cross often met with. In front of the house with his
back turned towards it, sits a deity. Each of the four deities has the
front of his body covered with a gala mantle. Now we know that the god of
the new year was set up before the house of the chieftain. On page 25 the
god is K with his eyes apparently destroyed, and on page 26 it is B with a
Kin sign on his head covering, hence designated here as a sun or day-god.
On page 27 the god is D, and on page 28, A with the cross-bones on his
robe, his own hieroglyph on his cheek, and the Akbal sign on his forehead.
Only on the last page, therefore, and apparently by mistake, the god in the
top picture is the same as in the middle picture.
At the left of each page, _i.e._, opposite the house and the god, is a
flaming altar, bearing the sign Ix equivalent to fire.
The centre, between the gods and the altars, is occupied by vessels of
which there are two on each of the first three pages and but one on the
fourth; they contain food, without doubt intended for the sacrificial
feast. On page 25 the lower vessel contains Kan (maize) and the upper
probably a food prepared from Kan. Or are the spines on the back of the
iguana indicated on this vessel? (Compare 40c and Cort. 8 and 12c). The
contents of the lower vessel on page 26 are still unknown (birds?). The
upper vessel contains a Kan, but the sign has a superfix, which corresponds
to the sign for the west. On page 27 the lower vessel contains a fish and
the upper the sign for the south. Lastly, the single vessel on page 28
contains the cross-bones (mammal?) and above them the Kan sign repeated
three times.
Finally here on the last three pages, we find some numbers, which are still
undetermined; on page 26 there is a 7 with the lower vessel, and on page 27
with the upper vessel two dots with a cross between them (perhaps this may
mean 20 - 2 = 18, which is used in place of the usual clumsy numeral?). On
page 28 we see above the vessel a 6, and below it, in place of a second
vessel, a double Chuen sign, as in the upper section of the page, therefore
it can hardly be the Akbal sign resembling Chuen.
5. The Middle Hieroglyphs.
On each page these signs consist of but _one_ line containing 5, 6, 3 and 3
glyphs respectively. The first of these signs in all of the four places is
the same (_o_), which very suitably refers to the change in the year. The
second sign is always the hieroglyph of the god represented in the middle
section:--K on page 25, B as the sun-god on page 26, and D on page 27. The
second sign on page 28, which is the head without an underjaw and with the
prefixed four, probably referring to four fast-days, must, therefore, be an
uncommon sign for A, who was similarly designated on page 25 in sign 8 of
the upper section.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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