34 THE AECHAIC MAYA INSCEIPTIONS. 



constituent part of either, unless at Palenque, or to be employed as a directive sign. 

 It is the head of the panting dog, the protruding tongue being its distinguishing 

 characteristic. It looks more like a tiger's head here, but, tracing it to the codices, 

 it is found to be substantially identical with that of the torch-bearing dog that figures 

 in illustrations of the 260-day or burner period. At the important date found so often 

 in the inscriptions of Copan and Quirigua, 4 Ahau-13 Yax, the beginning of the 

 15th katun of the 9th cycle — which I believe to have been also the beginning not 

 only of a 13-katun but of the katun round or a 949-katun period, and which was for a 

 certainty the beginning point of every period figured elsewhere in the inscriptions 

 except the cyclic ones — three different periods, designated by three distinct forms of 

 this glyph that I claim marks the bissextile count, are denoted to have begun. I 

 believe them to be the 234, the 260, and the 360-day bissextile periods — 300, 270, 

 and 195 of them, respectively, having elapsed from the beginning of the grand era up 

 to that date. About the 234 period — 13x18 — there can be no question, and I think 

 the numerative characters designating the other numbers admit of very little doubt. 

 One of them, as nearly as can be made out from the disfigured cast, is identical with a 

 character that in two other places denotes a 260 count ; the other is a composite form 

 of 18x20 and occurs in several instances where it is pretty certain that it stands 

 for 360. The most notable peculiarity about all these three forms of the glyph, 

 however, is that nowhere in the inscriptions within a range of more than nine hundred 

 years are they to be found except in association with the date in question. This is 

 suggestive, because other forms of this assumed bissextile sign occur frequently. It 

 indicates that they mark periods of long duration. 



Now, if my notion that they denote respectively the accruement of 234, 260, and 

 360 bissextiles be correct, then it is at distances corresponding with such results that 

 other like signs must be sought. During the little time I could devote to the exami- 

 nation, I have found nothing that met my expectation in looking backward, and, 

 looking forward, nothing till Stela F at Quirigua was reached. On that is a reckoning 

 leaping ahead until the beginning of a katun in the 13th or beginning cycle of the 

 succeeding great cycle is indicated, with an 18x20, or 360, bissextile sign imme- 

 diately following it. The date — very mutilated, but so far as can be made out — is 

 1 Ahau-13 Yaxkin. Turning to the indicated cycle, it is discovered that no katun in 

 it begins with that date, but the eighth katun begins with 1 Ahau-13 Yax. Now, from 

 4 Ahau-13 Yax, the beginning of the 15th katun of the 9th cycle in the preceding 

 great cycle, the 3 cycles and 13 katuns, or 1440 years, necessary to constitute an ahau 

 of bissextiles, reach precisely to this date. I am satisfied that 1 Ahau-13 Yax was the 

 date intended, if not actually carved — for the difference between the symbols for Yax 

 and Yaxkin is so slight that it requires but little defacement of a glyph to render them 

 indistinguishable — and that the burner sign in question indicates that 360 or an ahau 



