Cum ku. Forstemann's explanation of this glyph is that it represents "two flashes of lightning or the sun's rays striking on a maize field," but we see nothing for this suggestion.
Knowing then that the Mayan year consisted of eighteen 20-day months, the glyphs to represent these days and months have been looked for, and it is believed they have been found. On the opposite page these glyphs are illustrated, namely, the day and month signs. Further, the signs representing the other time-counts have been looked for and declared recognised. The first, the year or ahau sign, is supposed to be represented in a variety of forms, three of which are given on the opposite page. It is thought to be the same with the katun or 20-year sign, and the cycle (20 katuns) and great cycle (13 cycles) signs, three of each of which we give on the opposite page. The first three of this group, namely, the great-cycle signs, if they have been correctly read, would seem to denote an extraordinary date. According to Goodman's chronological table, he would have us believe that at Copan, where these glyphs always head a series of characters on a tablet, they belong to the 53rd, 54th, and 55th great cycles. From these dates various subtractions are made into which we have no space to go in detail. In any case, according to the present mode of reckoning, the glyphs at Copan and Quirigua bear the highest numbers in the chronological calendar, and thus those cities must be assumed to be the latest built, a proposition which, as we pointed out in Chapter XVII., is untenable.
But whether or not this calendar system is really accurate (there are a great many serious discrepancies) has yet to be proved. In the museums of America and Germany scholars have striven hard to soundly base their theories; while others have done yeoman service in the field, and undergone great hardships in collecting material upon which these learned men might work. In their enthusiasm the latter have, without doubt, blundered into deductions which are unjustifiable. They have detected similarities in glyphs which no other person can detect.
As an example of this we give an illustration from Professor E. Forstemann's own work. In the Bureau of American Ethnology Report (Bulletin 28, p. 549), after speaking of the ahau and katun glyphs, he says: "Then follows, almost of necessity, B 3 = 144,000 days [given in our figure 1], as the sign of similar form on the superscription has led us to conjecture, and as we see it repeated in C 5, F 6, U 2, and V 12."
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B3 |
V12 |
We agree with him that, as B 3 comes directly under the initial glyph and above the signs representing the ahau and katun, it is the 144,000 days or cycle sign—that is, of course, always allowing that his premisses, to which we give no adherence, are correct; and we follow him when he sees it "repeated" in C 5, F 6, and U 2. There is no doubt that these three glyphs are variations of B 3; but V 12 is an entirely new character bearing not the slightest resemblance except in Professor Forstemann's own imagination. This is but one example of his detecting likeness where none exists. The last-mentioned sign has its counterpart or its variants in many portions of the inscription of the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque with which Professor Forstemann is dealing, and if he had looked he would, with his superior knowledge of the Maya glyphs, have found them quite easily.