484 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



with the sign Ix as a pretix, and once with Caiiac. and this particuhir 

 page treats of the transition from Ix to the Cauac years. Thus the 

 meaning of the sign seems here sufficiently established. 



Let us now turn to page 50. Here we find once more the same fig- 

 ure as the second sign in the first line of calendar dates, with a pre- 

 fix which signifies the number 20 and a somewliat unintelligible 

 superior affix. The whole must mean, as I have already stated in my 

 Erlauterungen (1886), page 12, the twentieth day of the eighteenth 

 month, the official close of the year. This is another confirmation of 

 my theory. 



There is certainly a reason, although it is still unknown to me, why 

 this 360 sign agrees wholly or almost wholly with the glyph for the 

 sixteenth month, often rendering it difficult to decide with which 

 one of the two we have to deal. In niy Erlauterungen I still con- 

 founded the two and besides confused them with a third sign, which 

 I will now discuss. 



According to the Maya numeral system the number 360 is the unit 

 of the third degree; that of the fourth is 7,200. May not this also, 

 that is, the period of 20 official years, be represented among the 

 glyi^hs? I think I recognize this glyph in an expansion of the 360 

 sign, VI. AVe will call this figure the 7,200 sign. 



In order to establish this theory we next turn to page 58. In its 

 lower half, on the left, a series of 11,958 (more exactly 11,960) days 

 closes with a most striking picture. Above this picture stand ten 

 glyphs in the following order : 



3 8 



4 9 



5 10 



The middle signs, according to position 3 and 8, are the sun and 

 moon, but the middle ones in the series of numbers, 5 and 6, are the 

 7,200 and 360 signs, the former provided with a 1 (or a 20, if we 

 so read the 1 with a little cross under it ) , the latter vv ith a 13. But the 

 Mava figures for 11,958, the number belonging here, are 1, 13, 3, 18. 

 Nothing, I think, could be more natural than to recognize the signs 

 for 7,200 and 13X360=4,680 in the two glyphs. Together this Avould 

 be 11,880. I can not yet determine whether the remaining signs indi- 

 cate the 78 which are lacking to the sum total. 



Let us next consider page 61, with its two rows of glyphs running 

 from the top to the bottom. The fifth line from below is here formed 

 by the 7,200 sign with the numl)er 15 and the 360 sign with the num- 

 ber 9. Taken together, this would signify 111,240 days. More num- 

 bers from the lines above and below should doubtless be added, but 



