Volume 1

Mayan calendar systems / by Cyrus Thomas.

  • Cyrus Thomas
Date:
1900-1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Mayan calendar systems / by Cyrus Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/158 (page 715)
    TIME SERIES IN THE CODICES AND INSCRIPTIONS The Dresden Codex As the Dresden codex is now so generally known, it will be made the point of departure and the first examples showing the method of counting time will be taken from it. In this examination further com- parison will be made between the system used by Mr Goodman in count- ing time series and that first made known by Dr Forstemann and used by him and myself in the papers relating to this subject which have been published. As I have somewhat fully illustrated and explained in my Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices (in Sixth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnology), a considerable number of the time series of the Dresden codex, in which the figures do not rise above the fourth order of units, the examples referred to here will be those involving high numbers, in order to strengthen the proof of Dr Forstemann’s theory and to establish clearly the respective values of the units in the higher orders. These will also necessarily indicate the calendar system in vogue, to which it is desirable to call special attention. The names of the several orders of units is a matter which failed to receive attention until the subject was taken up by Mr Goodman; those that he has applied are unfortunate and can result only in con- fusion so long as they remain in vogue. Dr Brinton remarks that “No doubt each of these periods of time had its appropriate name in the technical language of the Maya astronomers, and also its cor- I’esponding character in their writing. None of them has been recorded by the Spanish writers, but from the analogy of the Nahuatl script and language, and from ceixainin dications in the Maay writings, we may surmise that some of these technical terms were from one of the radicals meaning ‘to tie, or fasten together,’ and that the corresponding signs would either directly (that is, pictorially) or ikonomatically (that is, by similarity of sound) express this idea” (Primer, pp. 30, 31). He suggests hak for the 360-da3^ period, and jpic for the 7,200-day period, and kal for the 20-day period. The name chuen, which Mr Goodman has applied to the month equiva- lent, the 20-day period, was adopted by him because of the resem- blance of the glyph to the symbol of the day Chuen. This duplicates the name in the time series. The same objection applies to the names ahau, katun, and cycle; each of these is now applied in three different senses in the calendar system, ahau being used as a day name, as a name of the 24 or 20 year period, and now for the unit of the third order, or 360-day period; katun for the 24 or 20 year period, with ahau prefixed for the 312-}mar period, and for the unit of the fourth order, or 7,200-day period; and cycle for the 52-year period, also sometimes for the 260-day period, and now for the unit of the