CORRELATION OF MAYA AND CHRISTIAN CHRONOLOGY. 523 
katuns and tuns always had ended on days Ahau; these ending-days followed each 
other in a generally known and unchanging sequence, and errors were very rarely 
made in regard tothem. The same was not true of the month-coefficients, however. 
The shift of 1 in the month-positions, the several shifts which the year-bearers had 
undergone, and most important of all, the fundamental change in their conception 
of time, from elapsed to elapsing time-periods, had brought about among the Maya 
a feeling of uncertainty by the time of the Spanish conquest which is clearly re- 
flected in Don Juan Xiu’s use of three different systems of month-positions in a 
series of 13 consecutive tuns. 
This loss of 205 positions in the haab in the Xiu records had the following 
practical effect: For example, let us assume that at the end of the Katun 8 Ahau 
in which Mayapan was finally destroyed and all the large cities abandoned, 205 
positions in the year were dropped from the u kahlay katunob when the Xiu moved 
to Mani. Under the correlation suggested here this was Katun 8 Ahau 3 Pax 
(12.5.0.0.0), but after these 205 positions were dropped it became Katun 8 Ahau 3 
Mol (11.12.0.0.0) and the four remaining katuns down to the katun of Napot Xiu’s 
death changed correspondingly as follows: 
The writer’s Katun 6 Ahau 3 Zac (12.6.0.0.0) became Katun 6 Ahau 3 Zip (11.13.0.0.0). 
The writer’s Katun 4 Ahau 3 Xul (12.7.0.0.0) became Katun 4 Ahau 8 Pax (11.14.0.0.0). 
The writer’s Katun 2 Ahau 3 Pop (12.8.0.0.0) became Katun 2 Ahau 8 Zac (11.15.0.0.0). 
The cage ya .: Ahau 8 Kankin (12.9.0.0.0) became Katun 13 Ahau 8 Xul 
II.16.0.0.0). 
Furthermore, this final Katun 13 Ahau, instead of ending in 1536, as the cor- 
relation suggested here indicates, according to page 66 of the Chronicle of Oxkutz- 
cab would appear to have ended in 1539; at least, a Tun 13 Ahau 8 Xul is said to 
have ended in that Christian year. 
This dropping of 205 positions in the year from the Xiu records may have been 
caused by some attempt to bring the Maya months into agreement with the Nahua 
months. Whatever may have been the reason why these positions were dropped, 
their elimination probably did not affect the sequence of the days Ahau on which 
the katuns ended, as above noted; indeed, these doubtless continued right down to 
the very end without a break. 
The most fundamental principle of Maya chronology, and indeed, of all the 
calendar systems of Central America and Mexico, which later grew out of it, the 
Aztec, Zapotec, Cakchiquel, Quiché, etc., was the absolute inviolability of the 260- 
day count, from which not a single day could be dropped without throwing the 
whole system into confusion. Thus, assuming these 205 year-positions were 
dropped at the end of the writer’s Katun 8 Ahau 3 Pax, this became 8 Ahau 3 Mol 
instead, and the following day instead of being 9 Imix 4 Pax, became 9 Imix 4 Mol. 
In other words, although the sequence of day-positions in the haab was broken, so 
long as the day sequence itself remained uninterrupted, the sequence of the katuns 
in the u kahlay katunob (which were named after their closing days) was not dis- 
turbed. 
It is very doubtful whether any similar omission of month positions ever took 
place among the Itza, and in any event not before Chichen Itza was abandoned in 
Katun 8 Ahau (1438-1458). The latest date known in the Corpus Inscriptionum 
Mayarum, that on the temple of the High Priest’s Grave at Chichen Itza, 11.19.11.0.0 
(1350 A.D.), in a Katun 5 Ahau conforms in every way with the Old Empire chro- 
nology, and tends strongly to indicate that so far as Chichen Itza is concerned no 
break in the continuity of the day positions ever occurred there. 
