138 THE ARCHAIC MAYA INSCRIPTIONS. 



Temple of Inscriptions. 



Initial date: 54 — 9 — 4 — 20 — 18x20 — 13 Ahau-18 Yax, declared by a subse- 

 quent sign to be the beginning of a katun, and by the five following ones, I think, a 

 certain distance from the beginning of the cycle. These signs may possibly be 

 substituted for the initial directive series, which is absent. The defaced condition of 

 the next ninety glyphs leaves little discernible for a certainty, but the following dates 

 and declarative signs can just be made out through the dimness : 11 Ahau-18 Tzec, 

 the beginning of the 5th katun ; 9 Ahau-3 Uayeb, the beginning of the 6th katun ; 

 13 Akbal-11 (or 16) Cumhu ; 9 Ahau-18 Muan, a 13th ahau; 7 Ahau-3 Kankin, the 

 beginning of a katun (the 7th); 13 Ahau-18 Ceh, the beginning of a 5th ahau. It is 

 not my purpose to particularize the glyphs of this long inscription. I have made 

 several lengthy extracts from it to illustrate the methods of reading the glyphs, and I 

 could say little now that would not be virtually a repetition of what has already been 

 said. But I will give a few more dates in order to show that the principal purpose of 

 this inscription was to score along from katun to katun, with incidental discussions on 

 the science of chronology, illustrated by formulas and greater or less flights in 

 reckoning. There is a singular thing about many of these illustrations, the reason for 

 which is not evident. They seem to pivot on Lamat dates, expressed or implied, 

 reciprocal reckonings between that day and others running all through the inscription. 

 Why this should be is one of the things yet to be found out. Requesting it to be 

 borne in mind that the. beginning of four consecutive katuns has already been 

 designated, I will proceed. The next date is 5 Ahau-3 Chen, the beginning of the 

 8th katun, followed by 5 Ahau-18 Tzec, a 13th ahau. Then comes a puzzling date. 

 It is 13 Ahau-18 Mac, indicated by the sign over Ahau to be the beginning of a 

 katun. There is no katun beginning with that date in the great cycle, and as there is 

 apparently no reckoning except one of 6 chuens and 14 days — showing the distance to 

 4 Ix-7 Uo, which follows — I am inclined to think the artist made a mistake in carving 

 the katun sign over Ahau. Then comes 3 Ahau-3 Zotz, the beginning of the 

 9th katun, the 3 Ahau being repeated shortly afterwards ; after which is 1 Ahau- 

 8 Kayab, the beginning of the 10th katun, the 1 Ahau also being soon repeated. 

 The second tablet begins with 12 Ahau-8 Ceh, the beginning of the 11th katun. It 

 is in this tablet that the most extended exercises in different methods of scanning 

 periods occur. There is but one other date in it — 10 Ahau-8 Yaxkin, the beginning 

 of the 12th katun. The dates in the third tablet begin with a repetition of the 

 foregoing one, and then comes 8 Ahau-8 Uo, the beginning of a katun — which one is 

 not declared, but we know it to be the 13th. Here the regular scoring of the katuns 

 ceases and the reckoning leaps forward to 7 Ahau-18 Zip, the beginning of the 10th 

 cycle ; but it is brought back again to go through the exercises shown in one of the 

 extracts referred to. 



