276 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 57 



Texts Recording Ascending Series 



There remains one other class of numbers which should be described 

 before closing this chapter on the codices. The writer refers to the 

 series of related numbers which cover so many pages of the Dresden 

 Codex. These commence at the bottom of the page and increase 

 toward the top, every other number in the series being a multiple of 

 the first, or beginning number. One example of this class will 

 suffice to illustrate all the others. 



In the lower right-hand corner of plate 31 a series of tliis kind 

 commences with the day 9 Ahau.^ Of tliis series the number 8.2.0 

 just above the 9 Ahau is the first term, and the day 9 Ahau the first 

 terminal date. As usual in Maya texts, the starting point is not 

 expressed; by calculation, however, it can be shown to be 1 Ahau ^ 

 in this particular case. 



Counting forward then 8.2.0 from 1 Ahau, the unexpressed starting 

 point, the first terminal date, 9 Ahau, will be reached. See the lower 

 right-hand corner in the following outhne, in wdiich the Maya num- 

 bers have all been reduced to units of the first order: 



(Unexpressed starting point, 1 Ahau.) 



In the above outline each number represents the total distance of 

 the day just below it from the unexpressed starting point, 1 Ahau, not 

 the distance from the date immediately preceding it in the series. 

 For example, the second number, 5,840 (16.4.0), is not to be counted 

 forward from 9 Ahau in order to reach its terminal date, 4 Ahau, but 

 from the unexpressed starting point of the whole series, the day 1 

 Ahau. Similarly the third number, 8,760 (1.4.6.0), is not to be 

 counted forward from 4 Ahau in order to reach 12 Ahau, but from 

 1 Ahau instead, and so on throughout the series. 



> In the text the coefficient appears to be 8, but in reahty it is 9, tlie lower dot having been covered by 

 the marginal line at the bottom. 



2 Counting backward 8.2.0 (2,920) from 9 Ahau, 1 Ahau is reached. 



3 Professor Forstemann restored the top terms of the four numtiers in this row, so as to make them read 

 as given above. 



* The manuscript reads 1.12.5.0, which Professor Forstemann corrects to 1.12.8.0; in other words, chang- 

 ing the uinal from 5 to 8. This correction is fully justified in the above calculations. 



