THOMAS] COPAN INSCRIPTIONS—STELA J 783 
FirreentH AnAu—5400 Days 
Second glyph—The 9, 5, and 4 signs are plain here; the other character, therefore, 
must be 30. 
Third glyph—The 5-ahau character, qualified by a siga that must represent 3—the 
whole being a symbol for a fifteenth ahau, or 15 ahaus. 
SrxTEENTH AHAU—5760 Days 
Second glyph—A. different character qualifies the coil here. It must stand for 
4-9 4=36 x 4=144 40=5760. 
Third glyph—The same form of the ymix character encountered at the twelfth ahau 
is again the central figure, but here it has a 20 sign under it, which presumably 
raises it to 120. If so, it requires to be multiplied by 48 to make up the total num- 
ber of days. The signs for 18 and 10 leave 20 to be supplied by the other character, 
which is the skeleton jaw, an invariable sign for 10, here doubled in value by the 
row of dots in the upper part. 
The manner of piecing out the numerals in some of the above instances has been 
too forced for the result to be regarded as altogether trustworthy. There are also 
several inconsistencies or errors; but, take it all in all, the number of occurrences in 
perfect accord with our assumption is too great to be attributable to accident, and 
we are therefore justified in believing our theory to be correct, however we may 
have erred in particular applications of it. We have gained a great deal more than 
is apparent at a first glance. Not only have a considerable number of equivalents 
for different ahaus and symbols for minor time periods been identified and the value 
of many new numeral signs established, but—more important than all this—we have 
satisfied ourselves that there is a plan underlying the employment of a portion of 
these signs which is capable of almost unlimited variation and extension. 
As our investigations so far appear to confirm sufficiently for gen- 
eral acceptance Mr Goodman’s interpretation of the symbols denoting 
the orders of units, or time periods as he terms them, we may now 
inquire how far the data bear out his announcement of various other 
numeral symbols. That there appears to be sufficient basis for his idea 
that certain face characters are used as numerals has already been 
noticed, though the evidence is as yet not entirely satisfactory as to the 
values assigned some of them. In his comment on the inscription now 
under consideration he goes more into detail in this direction, assign- 
ing number yalues to the component parts of and appendages to 
glyphs. In our examination of this inscription we shall notice briefly 
some of these ideas as we proceed. 
In the paragraph immediately preceding the long quotation given 
above he remarks as follows: 
We start with the assumption that every glyph following a particular ahau repre- 
sents it or its value in another way. The fact that there is no twentieth ahau— 
which, so far as the symbol that numeral is attached to is concerned, means no ahau 
at all—shows that one full ahau, or 360 days, is considered to have passed when the 
table begins. 
Here, at the outset, we are met with an assumption which seems to 
coyer half the ground to be examined. On what grounds does he base 
the opinion that ** every glyph following a particular ahau represents 
