708 MAYAN CALENDAR SYSTEMS [ETH. ANN. 19 
Xul, in the year 13 Akbal. Turning to our table of years (3), we 
see that 11 Ben is the third year in the Ben column, or the eleventh 
year of the cycle of years, and that 12 Ezanab and 13 Akbal follow. 
We are thus enabled to correctly locate these dates in the cycle of 
years. These statements and examples, with the illustrations which 
follow, will enable the reader to use the tables and to follow 
the present investigations. 
The order in which the characters in the codices and inscriptions 
are to be read has been fully explained in my previous publications, 
and so generally accepted that it is unnecessary to explain it here, 
especially as it is indicated in the quotation from Maudslay’s work 
given immediately below. This author, speaking of the order in which 
the inscriptions are to be read, says (Biologia Centrali-Americana, 
Archeology, part 2, Text, November, 1890, p. 39): 
With regard to the order in which the hieroglyphics should be read, Professor 
Cyrus Thomas has shown, from an examination of the Palenque tablets, that when 
a single column only of glyphs is met with, it should be read from the top to bottom, 
and that when there is an even number of columns, the glyphs are to be read in 
double columns from top to bottom, and from left to right. I myself came to the 
same conclusion from an entirely independent examination of inscriptions from 
Quirigua and Copan, and this order is adopted in numbering the glyphs on the fol- 
lowing plates. 
As I have also shown that this is usually, though not always, the 
order in which the glyphs of the codices, when in columns, are to be 
read, a conclusion which is now accepted by all investigators of Maya 
symbolic writing, we have in this fact one point of agreement between 
the codices and inscriptions at Palenque, Copan, Tikal, and Quirigua. 
The use of dots and short straight lines to indicate numerals up to 19 
(each dot counting 1 and each short line 5), as in the codices, is also 
universal in the inscriptions, as is admitted by Mr Maudslay. He has 
also confirmed my suggestion (Study of the Manuscript Troano, pp. 
202-203) that the little loops connected, in certain cases, with these 
number symbols have no signification. He says (op. cit., p. 39): ** There 
is no reason to suppose that any different system of notation is employed 
on the sculptured monuments; it was not, however, usual to leave blank 
spaces when carving the numerals 1, 2, 6, 7, 11, 12, 16,17 in stone, 
but to fill up the space thus: MOA, 1; OPM O, 2; MOG, 6; 
OlGDIOs Gctcr: 
—— 
As the ordinary numeral symbols, the dots and lines (which are 
neyer used to signify a higher single number than 19), have been so 
frequently explained and are incidentally referred to in what precedes, 
I pass to those discovered by Dr Férstemann and Mr Goodman, as 
I shall have frequent occasion to use them, but will not discuss at 
this point the general theory presented by the latter, nor his other 
