The tree Theobronia Cacao L. among the Maya was called 

 caca and was usually indicated by the visual presentation of the 

 prolate fruits of the plant. The seeds of this plant were highly 

 valued and served the Maya as a currency. When made into a 

 beverage, after being ground into a powder, theobromine in the 

 seed was released and served as a mild stimulant. The beverage 

 was undoubtedly bitter, as the innovation of adding sugar came 

 much later, after the ancient Maya civilization had collapsed. 



Apart from this brief commentary on two trees of some con- 

 sequence with respect to Maya ancestry and currency, it would 

 be desirable to peruse the entire Codex using the system estab- 

 lished by Forstemann in his 1892 edition of the Dresden Codex 

 as it has been used by scholars ever since the appearance of this 

 edition, even though subsequent commentaries and editions 

 have appeared. For those students of Maya scholarship wishing 

 to locate a particular series of glyphs, the Forstemann system 

 divides each page into three vertical sections (rarely four) that 

 are conspicuous in the original manuscript, and these are let- 

 tered from top to bottom as a, b, c and rarely d. Where these 

 t'ols are absent, the pages contain vertical columns; the width of 

 each of these is lettered from left to right in alphabetical 

 sequence. Captions for units of pages such as "almanac" or 

 "lunar table", etc., have been retained, and each t 'ol is numbered 

 sequentially under such a caption. For example, "Almanac 6" 

 has only two t'ols, numbered Tl and T2. In this commentary, I 

 shall omit any t'ols that do not contain glyphs or images that 

 relate to plants. It should be noted that the first two Almanacs of 

 the Dresden Codex are in such poor condition that commentary 

 cannot be made on such motifs or glyphs, if indeed they may 

 have existed. Gl is used for glyph. Where lunar tables interrupt 

 the sequence of Almanacs, they have been integrated into the 

 sequence. 



MISCELLANEOUS ALMANACS 



Almanac 3 (p. 2a) 



T2. Seated maize god with his glyph above 



Gl. 1. abundance of maize 



01. 4. maize god 



89 



