DETEEM1NATIYE SIGNS. 99 



This glyph occurs immediately after a date that is the beginning of a 

 10th ahau. The first character is the sign commonly employed, by 

 itself, to denote that circumstance. It is a modification of the quadrated 

 sign for 20 which forms its characteristic feature. There are many 

 variants of it — in fact, I doubt if it ever occurs twice in the same shape ; but, whatever 

 the variation, it never fails to indicate a 10th ahau or an even 10-ahau reckoning. 

 Being so common and apparently unmistakable, it does not seem at all necessary that 

 its meaning should be repeated here, but for some reason it is, and by a sign less 

 common and intelligible. The purpose may have been to familiarize the public with 

 the rarer sign by using it as a determinative of the better known one in a position 

 where it was impossible to mistake its significance — for they occur on a Tikal tablet, 

 the only signs between a date and a reckoning, the context proving the two characters 

 to be synonyms. But we are not left to infer the meaning of the determinative solely 

 from that circumstance. In the table showing the series of ahaus and their equivalent 

 signs, on Stela J, Copan, the 10th ahau is represented by this identical character ; so 

 there can be no question about its meaning, or about its being used as a determinative 

 in this particular case. 



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