EXERCISES IN" DECIPHERMENT. 



11' 



These glyphs precede a reckoning of 537 days, in the usual way. The last is iden- 

 tical, or apparently so, with a glyph that represents 17 days in a number of places. It 

 is probable, therefore, that the other may be a sign for a 520-day period. There seems 

 to be no limit to the number of different day periods they had. 



The glyphs here shown occur between two dates that are 16 years and 1 day apart, 

 with nothing else intervening that appears to indicate the interval in the remotest 

 way. I take the last glyph to be a 4-year sign, the numeral in front of it showing a 

 total of 16 years — the extra day being expressed by the first glyph. 



These characters occur where I think a period of 48 years and 480 days is required 

 to be accounted for. It will be observed that in the first glyph the face sign for 3 

 is substituted for the head in the supposed 4-year sign above. I believe the period 

 here indicated to be a 12-year one, which, multiplied by the 4 in front of it, dis- 

 poses of the even 4-year count or 48 years. The second glyph is the 120-day sign 

 with a determinative, and, multiplied by 4, represents the 480 extra days. 



The claim of the foregoing symbols to the values I have respectively assigned to 

 them can in no case be regarded as fully proved yet, but a very high degree of 

 probability attaches to some of them at least. I could give many more examples 

 of a similar character, but as all of them would necessarily be involved in the same 

 uncertainty, it is not worth while. 



In closing this section I wish to direct attention to what is the most exasperating, 

 if not most perplexing, feature in all the inscriptions. The reason why most of the 

 symbols that still baffle us continue to do so is that they do not occur often enough or 

 in proper positions to afford a thorough trial of their meaning. But here is a series 

 of glyphs repeated at least twenty times in as favorable a situation as could be desired, 



