15 



THE ANNUAL CALENDAR 



rx\ 



THE DAY. 



The old Spanish writers say the Mayas divided the twenty-four hours into various 

 shorter intervals, but the day appears to be the shortest period of time reckoning 

 made use of in the inscriptions. There are signs for morning and evening, daylight 

 and darkness and other lesser divisions, but they are used abstractly or as nature 

 symbols, not as designating specific durations of time. 



Twenty particular signs should identify the twenty days that constitute the basis of 

 the calendar, but owing to variations — especially in the symbols for Ahau — a greater 

 number of nearly distinct characters might readily be made out. Two things, however, 

 are pretty constant about these signs : they are always surrounded by a border, giving 

 them the appearance of cartouches, and they are nearly always placed on a support or 

 pedestal, consisting of two scrolls coiling outward from the sides of an indented 

 center-piece. These attributes serve to distinguish the days from other cartouche-like 

 glyphs, and to determine if a particular sign means the day for which it is the character 

 or something else — for almost without exception the symbols for the days have other 

 significations. Signs for two of the days — Muluc and Men — do not appear in any of 

 the inscriptions in my possession, while that for another — Ix — is too indistinct for its 

 details to be made out With these exceptions the typical Archaic forms are here 



