HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



This predominance of 30-day months over 29-day months, actually 

 found in the Lunar Series of the Dresden Codex, also appears in the 

 Supplementary Series. 



Of the 80 texts under observation, 44 have the coefficient 10 in 

 Glyph A, i.e., 30 days; and 31 the coefficient 9, i.e., 29 days, 5 being 

 indeterminate. These are approximately the same percentages in both 

 cases. 



Supplementary Series Dresden Codex 



30-day months = .586+ 30-day months = .528 + 



29-day months = .413+ 29-day months = .471 + 



The distribution of these 29- and 30-day months in the Supplementary 

 Series available for study is important, since it probably shows at what 

 points in their chronological system these extra 30-day months were 

 interpolated. 



As pointed out by the writer in a paper presented to the Nine- 

 teenth International Congress of Americanists, 1 the hotun, or 1800- 

 day period, appears to have been the most important chronological 

 unit in the Old Empire. Indeed this period seems even to have deter- 

 mined the times at which the monuments were erected, since the great 

 majority of all Maya stelae, probably exceeding 90 per cent, show 

 hotun endings as their contemporaneous dates. 2 



In Table X the occurrences of the 29- and 30-day months in the 

 different Supplementary Series are arranged in two groups according 

 to the kind of dates recorded by their accompanying Initial Series, 

 i.e., whether they are hotun endings or not. 



The most important outstanding fact in the table referred to is, 

 that whereas the percentages of 29- and 30-day months in the first 

 group are about equal (27 per cent of the former as against 25 per 

 cent of the latter), the percentages in the second group reveal a far 

 different condition, namely, more than a two-to-one predominance of 

 the 30-day months over the 29-day months. In other words, hotun 



1 See Morley, 1916. 



2 Many Maya inscriptions commence with early dates which are brought forward by Secondary 

 Series to later closing dates, which probably indicate the date of erection or formal dedication in 

 each case. It is these closing dates which show this overwhelming proportion of hotun endings. 

 We observe a similar custom in the inscriptions upon our own monuments; these usually give not 

 only the date of the event commemorated by the monument, say July 4, 1776, for example, but 

 also the date on which the monument was unveiled or put into formal use. It is evident that among 

 the Maya of the Old Empire at least, the endings of their successive 1 800-day periods were the 

 times at which they erected or dedicated most of their monuments, in short the hotun endings 

 usually indicate the contemporaneous dates. 



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