THE SERIES OF NUMBERS, DRESDEN CODEX. PAGES 



51 TO 58 « 



The most difficult and ingenious number series of the Dresden 

 codex, which occupies the upper half of pages 58 to 58 and the lower 

 half of pages 51 to 58, has already been discussed by me several 

 times, the first time and most minutely in 1886 in my Erlauterungen, 

 pages 33 to 34 and 68 to 70. But since then my comprehension of 

 these numbers has been so enlarged that a new treatment of this 

 important subject seems imperative. 



This passage, however, is organically connected with the immedi- 

 ately preceding pages 46 to 50, page 24 having briefly treated of the 

 contents of the two sections (see Zur Entzifferung der Mayahand- 

 schriften, IV). The purport of pages 16 to 50 is the bringing into 

 harmony of the apparent Venus year of 584 days, the solar year of 

 365 days, and the tonalamatl of 260 days, and this is accomplished 

 by means of three series, each of which extends over 37,960 days, for 

 that length of time is equivalent to 65 Venus, 104 solar, or 146 tona- 

 lamatl years. 



The corresponding problem on pages 51 to 58 is, first of all, to find 

 an agreement between the apparent Mercury year of 115 days and 

 the tonalamatl of 260 days, and this agreement is afforded by the 

 period of 11,060 days= 104 XI 15=46X260. Curiously enough, this 

 period includes as many Mercury years as the preceding period con- 

 tained solar years. 



The upper part of pages 51 and 52 treats of these 11,960 daj'^s, with 

 regard to which I need not go into further detail here, since the 

 greater part of this passage is occupied by a series whose difference 

 is exactly 11,960. 



It is most interesting to note that the Maya also sought to bring 

 the revolution of the moon into connection with this period, and to 

 observe the manner in which they did it. For the revolution of the 

 moon, which we assume to be 29.53 days, in any case demands a 

 fractional computation, of which the Maya either knew nothing, or 

 which they carefully avoided, just as did the ancient Egyptians, who 

 were familiar only with fractions having 1 for their numerator, and 

 at the utmost with, the fraction § (see Ilultsch, Die Elemente der 

 .agyptischen Teilungsrechnung, 1895, page 16). 



But the Mayas knew the revolution of the moon too accurately not 



"Zur Bntzifferiing der Mayahandschriften, VII, Dresden, Jan. 16, 1S08. 



463 



