508 BUREAU OF AMERTCAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



I have still a word to say concerning the remarkable tonalamatl in 

 the Dresden codex, pages 4a to 10a, where twenty of the first 52 days 

 are rendered prominent by pictures and groups of glyphs. Here this 

 character ajjpears in the groups 1, 5, 11, and 16; that is, with the sec- 

 ond, fifteenth, twenty-ninth, and forty-fourth days of the 260-day 

 period. That might mean that a new 13-day period had begun mean- 

 time, though not exactly with these days. The character {e) appears 

 besides, in a somewhat different position, it is true, in the fourteenth 

 group {the thirty-eighth day) ; that is, after the expiration of 13 

 groups. It is also remarkable that this day, as we saw above, is the 

 day Tx of the Mayas, Ocelotl (tiger) of the Aztec, and this day, if we 

 begin the series as usual with Imix, stands in the fourteenth place at 

 the beginning of a new week. Indeed, it should be observed that 

 this character, e, resembles no day glyph of the Mayas more closely 

 than Ix; and here there is possibly a forgotten original connection. 

 The sign Ix, hitherto entirely unexplained, almost suggests the idea 

 that in it two lines radiate from an Imix, between which three dots 

 are placed; now two lines and three dots form the number sign 13 

 (2X5-1-3). However, I do not wish to assert any conclusion. 



(5) This glyph, /, is the familiar sign for the thirteenth 20-day 

 period of the year; that is, the so-called month Mac. But I believe 

 I was right when I assigned a second meaning to this sign in my 

 treatise Zur Entziiferung der Mayahandschriften, IV. I examined 

 there page 24 of the Dresden codex, the object of which is to link to- 

 gether the solar year, the Venus year, and the tonalamatl, and inci- 

 dentally the lunar month and the Mercury year as well. Here I 

 found, first of all, in the series of glyphs on the left, several signs 

 relating to the solar and Venus years, and then, in the eleventh and 

 twelfth places, this glyph wherein I was inclined to see the tonalamatl, 

 for which, strange to say, no sign has as yet been discovered. This sign 

 is repeated, which may possibly denote the recurring tonalamatl. How 

 does the period Mac happen to have this meaning? The chief reason 

 is that 260 days of the year have really elapsed at the end of the 

 period Mac; but the form of this glyph also furnishes a certain 

 justification for connecting it with this meaning, for in reality it is a 

 variant of the familiar Imix which stands at the head of the series of 

 days. This sign has a suffix which originally seems to have indicated 

 a bird's feather and possibly still occurs in the manuscripts with this 

 meaning. A bird's feather, however, is one of the most fitting sym- 

 bols supplied by nature to designate the plural. Thus, in my opinion, 

 this glyph denotes Imix, in that the day constantly returns until it 

 regains its original position m the week. 



One place where I think I find a sign for the tonalamatl is in col- 

 umns A and B of the Cross of Palenque. After the well-known 



