FOnSTEMAXX.] 



THE MAYA GLYPHS 



503 



Those occiirriiio' most fre([uontly were (letenuined witli absolute cer- 

 tainty, the others with more or less i)rohal)ility. Schellhas, how- 

 ever, has Hot applied any of the traditional names to these gods, but 

 has simply designated them provisionally by letters, and in doing 

 so he is right, for the Olympus of the Mayas and Aztecs has so many 

 intersecting paths and byway's that it is almost unavoidable not to 

 go astray, especially since it is difficult to discriminate between the 

 universal and the local deities. 



I am now compelled to speak of myself. Since the appearance of 

 my Erliiuterungen (1880), I have published eight different treatises 

 on the Maya science : 



1. Three essays entitled Zur Entzifferung der Mayahandschriften, 

 1887, 1891, 1892, in pamplilet form, which were at first only intended 

 for private circulation. These will soon be followed by a fourth, 

 which is to be presented to the Congress of Americanists at Stockholm. 



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Fig, 110. Glyphs from the Dresden codex. 



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2. Zur Maya-Chronologie (1891) in the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie. 



3. The preface to my second edition of the Dresden manuscript 

 (1892). 



4. Three articles in Globus, volume 63, number 2, and volume Go, 

 numbers 1 and 15: Die Zeitperioden der Mayas, Zum mittelamer- 

 ikanischen Kalender, and Die Plejaden bei den Mayas. 



As this material is so widely scattered, and as I still wish to speak 

 of some signs not discussed in the above-mentioned articles, I will 

 here give the form of a few glyphs which have been recently 

 determined, omitting, for the sake of brevity, those which are still 

 doubtful. As I have proceeded from the mathematic standpoint, 

 these glyphs chiefly concern certain periods of time. 



The first {a, figure 110) is the sign for the year of 360 days, long 

 since recognized as the sign of the 20-(lay jieriod Pax. As such, how- 

 ever, it generally appears with three balls added below, which, I am 

 inclined to consider as a representation of the most conspicuous point 

 in the celestial equator, the three stars in the belt of Orion, with 

 which the sun is in conjunction in Pax. 



