THE BURNER PERIOD AND BISSEXTILE COUNT. 

 Variaxt Annual Bissextile Plan. 



33 



CALENDAR 

 ROUNDS. 



CALENDAR 

 ROUNDS. 



CALENDAR 

 ROUNDS. 



CALENDAR 

 ROUNDS. 



4- YEARS. 



BISSEXTILES. 











1 

 =73 chuens. 



1 









1 

 = 73 burners. 





13 







18 

 = 73 13-ahaus. 







234 





360 

 = 73 13-katuns. 









4,680=260X18. 



7,200 

 = 73 great cycles. 











93,600=260X360. 



I have incorporated a chronological count in the last table in order to show what 

 would be the regular sequence of the periods. It also shows that the thirteen ahau 

 and katun reckoning was compatible with that of the annual calendar, and affords an 

 explanation of why mention of a 13-katun count only is found in the Yucatec 

 chronicles. It was probably the count in common use, being more readily alignable 

 with the annual calendar than the count by cycles of twenty katuns. 



The foregoing tables are all based on the accruement of a bissextile every four years, 

 for the evidence, so far as it goes, points solely to that conclusion. Whether any 

 allowance was made for the deficient minutes and seconds, I have been unable to 

 determine ; but as no notice appears to be taken of them throughout periods greater 

 than that in which the aberration caused by them is corrected by the Gregorian plan, 

 it misjht be assumed that the Mayas never attained to an accuracy beyond that of the 

 Julian system. Still, they may have made the correction at longer intervals, or in a 

 manner I have been unable to detect. I shall be gratified should future discovery 

 prove them to have been as accurate in this respect as in nearly every other. The 

 correction, however, could be made only by going outside their regular bissextile plans 

 — as they had to go outside of the calendars to keep an account of the bissextiles 

 themselves — a circumstance that will render its detection very difficult. 



The little evidence I have to offer in support of my theory cannot, I am aware, have 

 the weight with others that it has with me, being meagre and incoherent and the chief 

 prop resting on an error in a glyph. Others Avill naturally distrust it, but I would 

 be willing to stake a great deal on the correctness of my conclusion. 



The glyph given at the head of this section, in one or another orm there represented 

 or with some minor modification, is one of frequent occurrence in the inscriptions, 

 always following a date or time reckoning, but without appearing to be ever a 



BIOL. CENTR.-amer., Archa;ol. 



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