ARCHAEOLOGY. 



17 



FIG. 1. SPECIMENS OF THE PREHISTORIC POTTERY-WORK OF SALVADOR. (REDUCED.) 



hundred and sixty days, and this anomalous pe- 

 riod is at the foundation of the native calendar. 

 Dr. Brinton's linguistic analysis of the names 

 of the twenty days in the Maya, Tzental, and 

 Quiche-Cakchiquel dialects, and in the Zapotec 

 and Nahuatl languages, shows that they are all 

 identical in significance, and therefore must have 

 had one and the same origin. By arranging the 

 symbols represented by the day names in order 

 from one to twenty, it is found that they ex- 

 hibit a sequence covering the career of human 

 life from the time of birth until death at an old 

 age. Thus, in all the 5 languages and dialects, 

 the name of the first day signified birth or be- 

 ginning; that of the tenth day success (through 

 hardship or suffering) ; of the eleventh, difficul- 

 ties surmounted; of the thirteenth, advancing 

 years ; of the twentieth, the sun or house of the 

 VOL. xxxiv. 2 A 



soul. It appears, therefore, that the calendar 

 conveyed a philosophical conception of life which 

 may or may not, however, have originated con- 

 temporaneously with it. The period of twenty 

 days was doubtless derived from the Vigesimal 

 system of counting in use among the tribes em- 

 ploying the calendar. This number twenty is 

 based on finger-and-toe counting, and Dr. 

 Brinton points out that in the languages inves- 

 tigated its name has the signification "com- 

 pleted" or "filled up." "In this way," he 

 thinks, " the number came to represent symbol- 

 ically the whole of man his complete nature 

 and destiny and mystically to shadow forth 

 and embody all the unseen potencies which 

 make or mar his fortunes and his life." It is 

 remarked also as a curious coincidence that the 

 product of twenty by thirteen days is two hun- 



