104 THE AltCHAIC MAYA INSCRIPTIONS. 



impenetrable at the start. The two general lines upon which I have operated are the 

 one where the reckonings and dates reveal unmistakably the value of signs, as the 

 period symbols and face numerals, and that where characters can be brought to trial 

 at the bar of periodicity. Other practices, of course, came in incidentally — in so hard 

 a struggle no resource must be overlooked — but those were the principal ones. To 

 find a place where I could corner a glyph in either of those ways was almost equivalent 

 to making it stand and deliver its meaning to me. Hence, I have hunted with avidity 

 for dates, reckonings, and periodical recurrences. 



The richest treasure in this respect — the one which comes nearest to being the 

 Kosetta stone of the Maya mystery — is the inscription on the north and south faces of 

 Stela J, at Copan. Maudslay divined its importance, and gives an extra plate of it 

 with the glyphs separated so as to accord with the respective ahaus. It is reproduced 

 here. The purpose of the inscription is so manifestly to give a table of the ahaus with 

 computations of the days respectively embraced in them, a number of certain other 

 time measures according with different ones, and in many instances equivalent signs for 

 the period denoted, that nothing is wanting but the time and patience to unravel its 

 details. But there is almost as much ill as good fortune about this tablet. Its space 

 did not allow a complete series of the ahaus to be given ; the last two glyphs are 

 hopelessly obliterated, while others are injured beyond sure recognition ; and the whole 

 first part of it is so defaced that nice distinctions, especially in the numeral characters, 

 cannot be made out with anything like certainty. But, such as it is, we will go 

 through it serially. As in print we cannot come back to apply subsequently obtained 

 information, in speaking of the earlier characters I shall have to anticipate a few 

 things that properly should be spoken of only later on. We start with the assumption 

 that every glyph following a particular ahau represents it or its value in another way. 

 The fact that there is no 20th ahau — which, so far as the symbol that numeral is 

 attached to is concerned, means no ahau at all — shows that one full ahau, or 360 days, 

 is considered to have passed when the table begins. 



FIRST AHAU.— 380 dats. 



2nd glyph. — The upper character is one meaning beginning, or from the beginning, 

 as we have learned from its use elsewhere with directive and period signs, so there will 

 be no necessity for speaking of it again. The inference is plain that the characters 

 under it represent the number of days in the single ahau that has passed. They 

 consist of a composite sign surmounting two opposed coils — the coil, however, not 

 being as plain in this particular instance as in succeeding ones. We have long suspected 

 all forms of the coil, where it went beyond a mere curve, to be indicative of 9, and 

 the subfix of the ahau symbol has pretty well satisfied us of it. Now, these are 

 identical with the coils in that subfix, but they have not the centerpiece between them 



