400 
Ficure 2.—Block Six, Hieroglyphic Stairway Naranjo. 
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1948 
Tage 
Cs 
The three glyphs at top right 
record a heliacal rising of Venus on 7 Akbal 16 Muan,February 26, A. D. 372. Two dis- 
tance numbers carry backward to December 5, 370, and forward to Katun 10, March 
Oh ye DY Siey 
step of the middle doorway was 
removed and set up as an altar while 
the doorways were narrowed. Fi- 
nally, the temple walls were built to 
support a two-walled roof crest pierced 
by windows. 
Morley deciphered the dates which 
I have transcribed. The subject mat- 
ter is the true length of the tropical 
year. Two 4 Ahau dates are multiples 
of the tzolkin from Maya zero, in one 
case at the winter solstice. A 10 
Ahau date is similarly a tzolkin mul- 
tiple from historic Baktun 7, but here 
it reaches October 16, as the anniver- 
sary of Maya zero. 
TABLE 4.—The tropical year on Structure 44, Yaxchilan 
Day number Day name Gregorian date 
ic Ws Nore 9G roti OCTAGON 0 4 Ahau Oct. 15,3373, BG: 
DAte wien ebtcvevsece treks gee raser remote 1354320 10 Ahau Oct-16," A. 9.53535 
(18 X 209 tun) = (18 X 206 tropical years) =365.2427 days 
PLFA tess! curetieiays alegetetcnetonpsiere seers 1008000 10 Ahau Aug. 6, A. D. 613 
PVACCHZI a Moto ngaaa Previa eeaine eae 1377260 5 Ahau Aug. 6, A. D. 398 
369260 days=1011 tropical years (365.2423 days each) 
The first formula, 209 tun=206 
tropical years, is an improvement over 
the simple approximation, 70 tun=69 
tropical years. ‘This taken three times 
over shows a discrepancy of more than 
5 days, which the subtraction of 1 tun 
from one side and 1 year from the 
other, balances. 
