HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



date; (2) immediately following the Initial Series terminal date; and 

 (3) standing between the two parts of the Initial Series terminal date. 

 The last position is by far the most common of the three, 1 which of 

 itself would appear to indicate that the Supplementary Series is an 

 integral part of the Initial Series. The close positional connection of 

 the two, the one inclosed within the other, doubtless was intentional, 

 and is to be interpreted as indicating a correspondingly close inter- 

 dependence of meaning. The other two positions indicate the same 

 idea, only in lesser degree, and since Supplementary Series are never 

 found anywhere else, it is evident that by their position alone the 

 ancient Maya priests intended they should be interpreted with and 

 by the aid of the accompanying Initial Series. 



Mr Bowditch finds the Supplementary Series vary from 4 to 9 

 glyphs in number. 2 These figures, it should be noted, represent the 

 extremes rather than the average. The writer's own studies have led 

 him to the conclusion that the normal and complete Supplementary 

 Series of the Great Period (approximately 460-600 A.D.) was com- 

 posed of 8 glyphs, and on this basis the glyphs in the accompanying 

 texts have been arranged. 



Each horizontal line of glyphs is a complete Supplementary Series. 

 The accompanying description in each case gives: (1) the number of 

 the text in the present arrangement, an unessential factor added only 

 to facilitate and expedite comparison; (2) the site where the text 

 occurs; (3) the monument upon which it is inscribed; and (4) the date 

 of the accompanying Initial Series in Maya Chronology. In those 

 cases where the Initial Series date does not correspond with the con- 

 temporaneous date of the monument, the latter also is given. The 

 marginal letters D and M show the positions of the day and month 

 signs of the Initial Series terminal date in each text. 



In the drawings it was necessary to arrange the individual glyphs 

 of each Supplementary Series in such a way that when two or more 

 texts were compared the same glyphs would fall in the same column. 

 This was achieved by a horizontal presentation of each text, regardless 

 of the way it occurs in the original, except that the sequence of the 

 individual glyphs within the series (the only vital point so far as their 

 presentation is concerned) has been scrupulously preserved. 3 In 



1 Of the 80 examples in the accompanying plates, 6 fall into the first class above, 1 1 into the 

 second, and 63 into the third. Thus in more than 78 per cent of the texts under observation the 

 Supplementary Series stand between the two parts of the Initial Series terminal date. 



2 Bowditch, 1910, p. 244. 



3 In one text, No. 34, the last two glyphs, A and B, are apparently reversed in position. Such 

 an abnormality in the light of all the other texts can hardly be other than accidental, and it has 

 been corrected in the accompanying drawing. For the uncorrected sequence, see Maler, 1908, 

 pi. 41, 2, B6 A7. 



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