THE FACE NUMEKALS. 



45 



FACE SIGN FOR 6. 



The chief characteristic of this face is the hatchet-eye. It appears to have occurred 

 to some imaginative artist that the rigid sign for Ik — the day representing 6 in the 

 series of day numerals — could be made more graceful and yet remain quite as 

 intelligible; so the Egyptian cross and hatchet came to have the same significance. 

 The latter is used invariably in the face signs for 6 and 16, while the former occurs 

 frequently in the eye of personified time periods. The forehead ornament — two or 

 more concentric half-circles— is another characteristic of the 6-face, and it is found 

 also in one form of the numeral eye. 



FACE SIGN FOR 7. 



The characters (for I believe there will be found to be two nearly distinct faces) 

 for this number occur in no position in the inscriptions where as yet I am able 

 to definitely establish their value, but I think it is safely deducible from other 

 circumstances. Akbal is the day representing 7, therefore the face with that 

 sign is intelligible enough ; but the one with the circle around the eye is not so 

 comprehensible — though the trace of a similar circle can be detected on one of the 

 faces with the akbal sign. The circled face occurs, however, on Stela E, at Copan, in 

 a connection that shows it must stand for 2, 7, 12, or 17. As a survey of the 

 complete list of face numerals will prove it to be unlikely that it is 17, 12, or 2, there 

 remains only the conclusion that it must be 7. 



