THE M WAN < I \ I 1.1/ \TI<>\ 117 



reduced entirely to the Arabic system. The columns are 

 Lettered at the top, the hieroglyphs are counted off in 

 sixteen rows at the left and the separate groupings of 



numbers are shown in five sections at the right. 



Among the hieroglyphs the Venus sign is especially 

 prominent. At the base of column B is given a number in 

 five periods that, counted from the normal beginning day 

 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu leads again to this day which is recorded 

 at the bottom of column A. The long number in column 

 C, similarly counted from 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, leads to 

 1 Ahau is Kayab, recorded at the bottom of B. The 

 day 1 Ahau 18 Uo is reached by another calculation 

 which will be explained later. At the base of A is a 

 number in three periods which amounts to 2200. Not 

 only is this the difference between the long numbers in 

 B and C (1,366,560—1,364,360 = 2200) but it is 

 also the number of days by which 1 Ahau 18 

 Kayab precedes 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu. In other words 

 we deal in this passage with the end of the seventy- 

 second calendar round after the original 4 Ahau 8 

 Cumhu and with a new point of departure 2200 days 

 earlier, which is some way involved with the calendar 

 of Venus. 



Let us now make a new beginning in the lower left 

 hand corner of this page. In G5 we find the number 

 2920 which as we have already seen is exactly the num- 

 ber of days consumed in eight years of 365 days or five 

 synodic revolutions of Venus of 584 days. We will now 

 see how the Mayan scholars arrived at 13x2920 or 

 37,960, the calendar round of Venus. If we proceed 

 towards the left in section 5 we find the second number, 

 F5, i- 5840 which equals 2x2920, the third is 8760 or 

 3x2920, and the fourth is 11,680 or 4x2920. Theaddi- 

 tion i- continued in sections 4 and 3 till we reach 35,040 



