14 THE AECHAIC MAYA INSCRIPTIONS. 



for fresh discovery, and any one who has the time and inclination can follow in their 

 footsteps with assurance that the field remains fertile as ever. 



This is perhaps as appropriate a place as any to state one or two important things 

 that do not come under any particular head. 



In dealing with Maya chronology it must always be borne in mind that no allowance 

 is to be made for bissextile days. They are dropped out entirely in both the year and 

 ahau counts — as if we should skip the 29th of February, giving it no name or place 

 in our almanac, though cognizant of its suppression and taking note of its existence 

 in another way. Their years, therefore, though always appearing to consist of only 

 365 days, are the exact equivalents of ours, leap years and all, throughout whatsoever 

 period the reckoning may extend. For all general purposes of comparison no change 

 is required in either their or our style of computation ; but should we ever be fortunate 

 enough to discover a point of correlation, we shall have to drop the name of one of 

 our days every four years in order to keep the relative days of the two calendars in 

 proper alignment, whether reckoning forward or backward. 



Another consideration which must be constantly borne in mind is that all Maya 

 dates relate to elapsed time. When a date is given it must be remembered that it is 

 not the beginning of a period yet to run its course, but the beginning of one denoting 

 a period already concluded. The ingenious numeration of their periods was designed 

 to prevent confusion in this regard. The first day, chuen, ahau, katun, cycle and 

 great cycle is not numerated 1, but 20, 18, 20, 20, 13, 73, as the case may be, denoting 

 that the full round of the period has run and that this is the commencement of a new 

 count. In other words, these beginning numerals are equivalent to nought or no 

 count, the periods being designated only until after they had fully passed. It is very 

 difficult to keep track of this style of numeration — so difficult, in fact, that familiar as 

 I am with it, I am distrustful of having made some lapses in these pages. 



