41 



THE FACE NUMERALS. 



i 



The group I call the " face " numerals is the most interesting of all the series, not 

 merely on account of its singular character, but because it affords so much insight into 

 the meaning of the personages represented on the monuments and in the codices. I 

 have not determined the characters beyond 20, and of that list three are uncertain, but 

 it is likely that faces indicating higher numbers will be discovered. These numerals 

 are chiefly employed in initial dates, a circumstance that renders their value easily 

 ascertainable, but they are also at times made use of in the body of the text. The 

 fact that a face which is readily recognizable as one of this series sometimes constitutes 

 a glyph by itself lends probability to the supposition that other lone faces, not recog- 

 nizable, represent numbers greater than 20. There is considerable variation in some 

 of these characters, as is to be expected of figures made in different places and eras ; 

 but, taking all things into consideration, the types will be found to be remarkably 

 constant throughout. The most noticeable difference is in the head-dress, or whatever 

 the upper part of the glyph may be termed ; but this is a peculiarity in the represen- 

 tation of all the personifications of the codices and inscriptions. Different head-gear 

 was given to every one of them at times. Whether this was mere caprice, or whether 

 it signified particular manifestations of power — as the various attributes of heathen 

 deities were implied by different appellations — is a question yet to be determined. 

 This face series of numerals, taken in connection with the examples already given, 

 establishes two things pretty conclusively: first, that there was a principle, or system, 

 underlying the Maya scheme of numerical signs ; and, second, that the principle was a 

 mathematical one, by which the signs for the higher numbers were built from those 

 below, just as the greater time symbols were constructed from the less. The only 

 process employed in the face series, so far as can be seen at present, is that of addition ; 

 but it is not unlikely that when higher numerals of this class are identified, multipli- 

 cation also will be found to enter into their composition, as it does into the signs for 

 higher numbers already instanced. 



biol. centr.-AjMER., Archreol. 



