THE SUPPLEMENTARY SERIES. 355 
others of 30 days; and on the basis of this meaning the writer suggested that Gylph 
A declared the kind of month (1. ¢., whether composed of 29 or 30 days, a condition 
shown by Glyph A itself in each case), in which the accompanying Initial Series 
date fell, a hypothesis which has since become generally accepted. For example, 
Glyph A on Stela F at Quirigua has a coefficient of 10, and the whole glyph, there- 
fore, is to be interpreted as indicating that the corresponding Initial Series terminal 
date, 9.16.10.0.0 1 Ahau 3 Zip, fell in a 30-day month. 
The decipherment of this glyph at once established the general meaning of the 
Supplementary Series as a lunar count of some sort, which is further proved by the 
fact that no less than 6 of the 8 glyphs of which it is composed, in fact all except 
Glyphs G and F, at one time or another, and some of them all the time, have the 
moon-glyph as an essential part. 
Scarcely less important than the preceding sign is Glyph C (see figure 79, i-?), 
the fifth sign from the left, which occurs as frequently as Glyph A (in 97 per cent. 
of the texts under observation) and which, together with Glyphs A and X, are the 
three most important signs in the Supplementary Series. 
Glyph C, like Glyph A, is again constant, being composed of four elements 
which are always present in one form or another and a fifth, an ending prefix or 
superfix, which, since the Maya themselves omitted it in about two-thirds of the 
texts under observation, we may conclude was not essential to the meaning of the 
sign. [hese elements are: 
1. A hand, always present and never changing in form. 
2. A variant of the moon-sign, always present and never changing in form. 
3. A bar-and-dot coefficient, always either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or in some cases no coefh- 
cient at all, which, since 1 itself is never found, is probably to be interpreted 
as the equivalent of 1 in this glyph, as in algebra 1a and a are the same. 
4. A human head, always present, though varying considerably, passing through 
a number of different types. 
5. The ending prefix or superfix alluded to above, wanting in about two-thirds of 
the examples. 
The first two are so constant that they may be passed with brief comment. 
The hand in the Maya inscriptions has always been found to mean “end of,” “‘close 
of,’’ and hence even “zero.” As attached to a variant of the moon-sign, therefore, 
it might perhaps indicate that a lunation or at least some longer lunar period had 
come to an end, or that possibly a whole month was in question. 
The third element, the bar-and-dot coefficients, of 2, 3, 4, 5,6, and no coefhicient 
at all, which hereafter will be called 1, is, on the contrary, probably the most im- 
portant part of this glyph. R. K. Morley was the first to explain this coefficient as 
indicating in each case the position of the month declared by Glyph A, in a higher 
lunar period composed sometimes of 5 and sometimes of 6 of these 29 and 30 day 
lunar months. In other words, that these coefficients were ordinary positional 
numerals, like any regular Maya coefficients, those of the katun for example, and 
that they fixed the positions of the current month in a higher lunar period, no 
coefficient corresponding to the first or opening position. 
His basis for this explanation is pages 51 to 58 of the Dresden Codex, where 
there are recorded 405 successive lunations, arranged in a series of groups, some of 
which contain 5 lunations each, but more 6 lunations each. The individual luna- 
tions vary from 29 to 30 days in length, but these are so cleverly combined in each 
group, some having 177 days (i. ¢., 3X 29+3 X30), others having 178 days (7. ¢., 
2X29+4 X30), and still others 148 days (7. ¢., 2X 2913 X30), that at no single 
group-ending in the entire period covered, nearly 33 years, is the cumulative error 
as much as a single day out with the total number of days in the corresponding 
total of lunar revolutions. 
