FflRSTEMANN.] TIME PEKIODS OF THE MAYAS 495 



But this period of 4,680 days seems never to have come into actual 

 use; the triple of it, 14,040 days, ha vine; been i)referred, a period 

 Avhich certainly lends itself with marvelous adaptability to an immense 

 number of the most various divisions. Like 4,680, it is divisible by 

 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13. But it also admits of still more important 

 divisions: (1) It is divisible by 13, and by the most diverse multii^les 

 of that number, 26, 39, 52, 65, 78, etc.; (2) it may be divided by 20 

 and by its multiples 40, 60, 120, 180; (3) it is divisible by 18, the 

 number of the so-called months of the j'ear, and b}^ several of its 

 multiples, as 36 and 54. 



It is, of course, equal to 54X260-da)'^ and 39X360-day periods. It, 

 therefore, properly forms the very nucleus of the last section of the 

 Dresden manuscript and appears conspicuously large in the right- 

 hand column of page 73 with its Maya ciphers : 



1 



19 

 

 0. 



From this column proceed two rows of figures, one of which has the 

 difference 65 ; that is, a fourth of 260, a two-hundred-and-sixteentll of 

 14,040; the other increases by 54, the triple of 18, which is the two- 

 hundred-and-sixtieth part of 14,040. 



14,040 is also qoncealed elsewhere in the same manuscript. Thus on 

 page 24, at the bottom of the left-hand column, there are three dates, 

 of which the right-hand one is 11,960 days distant from the middle 

 one, and the middle one 2,200 days from the left-hand one. There- 

 fore the two extreme dates represent together 14,160 days, or, bearing 

 m mind the intervals of days belonging to them, I Ahau and IV 

 Ahau, 14,040 days from each other. 



It is well known that pages 46 to 50 are closely connected with this 

 jiassage. It need not seem surprising, therefore, that 14,040 can here, 

 too, be obtained by computation, as I ma}' hereafter be able to demon- 

 strate. Thus the ends of the periods recorded in the first serpent also 

 have the difference 14,040 (see my treatise Zur Entzifferung der 

 Mayahandschriften, II). Hence the period of 14,040 days must have 

 been of the utmost importance before the introduction of the year 

 of 365 days, and was doubtless designated by a word, which we 

 unfortunately do not know. 



It was presently discovered that the solar year actually consists of 

 365 daj^s, and an attempt was at once made to harmonize it with the 

 tonalamatl of 260 days. The well-known katun=73 tonalamatls or 

 52 solar yea rs= 18,980 days was thus obtained, a period after the 

 expiration of which each da}^ date again recurs in the same place in 

 the year. In accordance with this, the katun seems to be expressed 



