488 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



we readily reach the conchision that here, too, a period of time is 

 meant. We find this combination nowhere else in our manuscript. 

 It now^ becomes jirobable that the period of time which \Ye are seek- 

 ing must have a close connection with the above-mentioned supposed 

 ahau, for in this place we see the phallic prefix divided into two parts 

 and furnished with two marks above it. Might it not therefore 

 mean one-third of the ahau, that is, 2,920 days, that important period 

 of 8 terrestrial or 5 Venus years which plays so great a part on pages 

 24 and 46 to 50 ? If we turn to those pages we find the sign r. 



The figure on the forehead seems to be only an abbreviation of the 

 prefix, seen, as it Avere, from the other side. The passages in ques- 

 tion are on page 24, second coluum above the middle; page 49, fourth 

 column, in the middle; and page 50, on the left below. I find it 

 nowhere else. We might perhai)s mention that the Chicchan head, as 

 Doctor Schellhas states in his Die Maya-Handschrift (1886), page 

 64, belongs to the picture of a serpent on page 35b, but has different, 

 somewhat indistinct, prefixes and superior affixes. The windings 

 of the serj)ent run in five different directions, and on its body are 

 8 spots resembling bosses? Can this be an allusion to the 5 Venus 

 and 8 terrestrial years. This might l>e going too far. Suffice it to 

 say that there are some reasons for thinking that we have really the 

 period of 2,920 days before us. 



A glance at page 31a shows us how all these last-mentioned signs 

 belong together. There is the number 2,804,100 in the second column 

 from the right. Above this there must have been six signs. The 

 two upper ones are effaced; then follows a trace of Imix, probably 

 the katun sign with a number before it; then, a very much stained 

 glyph, perhaps the 2,920 sign just discussed; and last, but quite 

 plain, the 8,760 and the 7,200 signs. The destruction or indistinctness 

 of the uppermost signs is especiall}^ to be regretted here, as in all 

 probability these signs stood in the closest relation to the large num- 

 ber before mentioned. 



So much for the second of the five signs below on page 70. I will 

 now hazard a modest conjecture in regard to the fourth as well. It 

 has the form s. 



It probably originated in a bird's head. In place of the eye we 

 find a figure which looks almost exactly like the 360 sign. The lines 

 beneath it strongly resemble those in tlie Imix katun sign. Now, 

 this fourth sign occurs between the third, the old ahau of 20X360, 

 as it were (an ahau of 20 years has actually been found in the original 

 sources), and the fifth, the old year of 360 days. Now, nothing seems 

 more natural than that the fourth sign should likewise refer to the 

 ancient computation of time, and it is eas}^ to sup^^ose this to be an 

 ancient katun =52X360= (72X260). According to this supposition, 



