The last page on the front of the first section of this Manuscript is used
for a series, which presents itself as a second improved edition of the
series which was found on pages 31a-32a. The very fact that the writing is
so much better proclaims it an amendment. The chief aim of both series is
the same, viz:--to bring into unison the numbers 91, 104, 260 and 364. But
the two series gain this end by different means. On page 32 the series
begins with 91, and at first has only 91 as a difference, until with 728 a
multiple of 104 and 364 is obtained, then it returns to the simple
difference 91, in 1456 it obtains again the 104 and 364, loses these two
last numbers once more in 1820 and finally in 3640 obtains the desired
multiple of all four numbers, which is retained in 7280, 14,560, 21,840 and
29,120. The series on page 45a proceeds much more briefly. It begins at
once with 728 (91, 104, 364), loses the 104 in 1092, gains the 260 and
loses the 104 in 1820, arrives at divisibility by all four numbers in the
3640, loses the 104 again in 5460, but then comes to a standstill after
having obtained the same multiples (double at that) of 3640, which I
mentioned just now in the preceding series. Indeed it can be seen from what
is legible in the third column above, that the series went still further.
But so much is obliterated that I have obtained the numbers 14,560 and
21,840 in both series only by conjecture.
In the earlier passage the starting-point of the series is the day XIII
Akbal and in the one before us it is the day XIII Oc. In the former the
days specified were 91 days apart from each other, and here they are
separated by 104, _i.e._, XIII Ezanab, XIII Ik, XIII Cimi, XIII Oc.
The initial days of the two series, XIII Oc-XIII Akbal, are separated by 13
days, and the reversed series, XIII Akbal-XIII Oc, by 247 days. Hence the
subject of both passages is essentially the week of thirteen days, _i.e._,
the year of 364 (28 × 13) days.
Now this series is also accompanied by a number amounting to millions. It
is in the second column of page 45; only, in order to understand it, we
must add a zero as the bottom figure; then it becomes 1,278,420. XIII Oc
stands below this number as the beginning of the series. The first column
has 30 as an encircled number and below it the normal day IV Ahau.
The large number must have been formed as follows:--
The point of departure was 230, the interval between IV Ahau and XIII Oc,
to this was added 98 × 260 = 25,480, the sum being 25,710. The result of
this number added to 11 Ahau-Katuns = 1,252,680, was 1,278,390, which
number is not revealed in the Manuscript. It is concealed in XIII Oc 3 Mol
(2 Muluc). But 1,278,390 = 42,613 × 30, _i.e._, it is divisible by the
interval XIII Oc-IV Ahau.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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