MORLEY] INTRODUCTION TO STUDY OF MAYA HIEROGLYPHS 273 



9.9.9.16.0 or 9.9.16.0.0 as the contemporaneous date of the manu- 

 script the writer would prefer to beheve, on historical grounds, that 

 the manuscript now knowTi as the Dresden Codex is a copy of an 

 earlier manuscript and that the present copy dates from the later 

 Maya period in Yucatan, though sometime before either Nahuatl or 

 Castilian acculturation had begun. 



Texts Recording Serpent Numbers 



The Dresden Codex contains another class of numbers which, so 

 far as known, occur nowhere else. These have been called the Serpent 

 numbers because their various orders of units are depicted between 

 the coils of serpents. Two of these serpents appear in plate 32. 

 The coils of each serpent inclose two different numbers, one in red 

 and the other in black. Every one of the Serpent numbers has six 

 terms, and they represent by far the highest numbers to be found in 

 the codices. The black number in the first, or left-hand serpent in 

 plate 32, reads as follows: 4.6.7.12.4.10, which, reduced to units of 

 the first order, reads : 



4X2, 880, 000 = 1 1 , 520, 000 



6X 144,000= 864,000 



7x 7,200= 50,400 

 12 X 360= 4,320 



4X 20= 80 



10 X 1= 10 



12,438,810 

 The next question which arises is, Wliat is the starting point from 

 which this number is counted? Just below it the student will note 

 the date 3 Ix 7 Tzec, which from its position would seem almost surely 

 to be either the starting point or the terminal date, more probably 

 the latter. Assuming that this date is the terminal date, the starting 

 point may be calculated by countmg 12,438,810 hacTcward from 3 Ix 

 7 Tzec. Performing this operation accorduig to the rules laid dowai 

 in such cases, the starting point reached will be 9 Kan 12 Xul, but 

 this date is not found in the text. 



The red number in the first serpent is 4.6.11.10.7.2, which reduces 

 to— 



4X2, 880, 000 = 1 1, 520, 000 

 6X 144,000= 864,000 

 11 X 7,200= 79,200 



10 X 360= 3,600 



7X 20= 140 



2X 1= 2 



12, 466, 942 



43508°— Bull. 57—15 18 



