THE MAYAN CIVILIZATION 107 



little less than 20 years and a baktun a little Less than 

 400 years. But the count Is really of days, not years, 

 and is made from a uniform beginning day. far in the 

 past which marks the Mayan Era. 



Although the numerical values were expressed by 

 position alone in Borne cases, in others use was made of 

 Period Glyphs which made assurance doubly sure. 

 These period glyphs represented the basic value of the 

 positions which were to be multiplied by the accom- 

 panying numerals. For examples see Pigs. 39 and 40. 



The Long Count. On many early monuments of 

 the Mayas are found dates which record a number of 

 days running into the fifth position, from an era long 

 before the actual beginnings of Mayan history. These 

 are called Initial Series dates because they usually follow 

 immediately after the so-called Introducing Glyph. 

 The starting point in the count is always a day 4 Ahau 

 S Cumhu and the inscriptions not only record the 

 elapsed days since this starting point but also the name 

 and number of the resulting day and its position in the 

 month, the permutation cycle and the calendar rounds 

 turning unceasingly. An example of a typical Initial 

 Series date is given herewith as well as a Secondary 

 Series which is added to the Initial Series to reach a 

 Period Knding date — that is a "round number" in the 

 MayaD numerical system. 



The True Year. So far we have been concerned 

 primarily with the counting of days — the astronomical 

 time unit determined by the revolution of the earth 

 upon its axis. Now, although the day is not contained 

 evenly in the other astronomical time periods (the 

 month, the year, and the apparent revolutions of the 

 planets the Mayan scholars made some remarkable 

 correlations of the heterogeneous data. 



