ABSTEACT DAT SIGNS. 



91 



therefore, to infer that these signs for 400 have their ordinary significance here, and 

 that their use, like that of the signs for 20 to express 18 in this same connection, is a 

 survival from remote times \ An entirely separate fact lends probability to the inference. 

 One of the declarative signs made use of to denote that a date begins an ahau is 



this : 



The factors of this glyph are familiar. They are both signs for 



20 ; multiplied together, they produce 400. There can be but a single reasonable 

 explanation of the employment of this sign to denote an ahau — that it is a survival 

 from the time when the ahau consisted of 20 chuens, or 400 days. 



12* 



