S THE ARCHAIC MAYA INSCRIPTIONS. 



accounts for the extraordinary number of periods beginning with the date as nothing 

 else I have been able to conjecture can. 



I look upon the Maya chronological scheme as ranking among the most marvelous 

 creations of the human intellect. From what humble origin it rose, or through what 

 crude stages it passed, we shall never be able probably to discover. It appears before 

 us only in its matured state — complete, perfect, and altogether admirable, a system of 

 exact detail and perpetual range. Its methods of computation may appear involved 

 and awkward to us who are accustomed to the simple arithmetical progression of the 

 days and years ; but I have yet to learn that many existing nations regard their arbi- 

 trary weights, measures, and money systems as less perfect than the metric and decimal 

 ones. Were argument necessary, the Maya system is more defensible than theirs. 

 Facility of reckoning is not so much a matter of different methods as of familiarity 

 with some particular method. 



The Maya mathematical system is a vigesimal one. Everything goes by scores. 

 Their numeration ascends by multiples of twenty from 1 to 20, to 400, to 8000, to 

 160,000, to 3,200,000, to 64,000,000, and so on. This vigesimal system appears to me 

 sufficient in itself to explain all the peculiarities of their calendar. Much speculation 

 has been wasted on the number 13, which plays such an important part in their time- 

 reckoning. Don Pio Perez surmised that its use originated from observation of the 

 number of days the moon appears to increase and diminish ; Brasseur de Bourbourg 

 supposed that it may have been a sacred number before the invention of the calendar, 

 being, according to him, the number of gods of high rank; while others have indulged 

 in equally far-fetched conjectures to suit, theories of their own. I see no necessity for 

 all this, mere than for other strained conjectures to account for self-evident facts. The 

 old Maya scientists probably did not handicap themselves with puerile fancies and sacred 

 mysteries any more than do their scientific brethren to-day. It is likely that, according 

 to their lights, they went just as irreverently and directly to their objective points. 

 Superstition, divination, mystery, became associated with their calendar, as at different 

 times and places they have with the bible, hymn-book, and almanac; but they were 

 ignorant aftergrowths, not of the essence of its construction. Whatever of sacredness 

 may ever have attached to numbers is far more likely to have originated from the 

 wonders wrought by them in the calendar than from any prior association. 



Missing the plan of simple progression in their chronology, as more enlightened 

 nations have missed it, the Mayas proceeded to construct one based on their vigesimal 

 system. The twenty cardinal days, the twenty days in a month and chuen, the twenty 

 ahaus in a katun, the twenty katuns in a cycle, and the progression by twenties of 

 other periods of the calendar, are conclusive evidence of such a design. But it is 

 impossible to construct a calendar in keeping with solar phenomena upon a purely 

 vigesimal or decimal system, as the Maya and Vendemiare schemes — between which 

 there are many curious resemblances — fully prove. The continuity of reckoning by 



