Here each circle means a day, and those with the Triskeles, culminating days.[[180]]
Another form of representing days is seen in the Vatican Mexican Codex, published in Kingsborough’s Mexico, Vol. iii:
Fig. 12.
This is not far from the figure on the stone at Copan, described in Dr. Hamy’s paper, where the design is as follows:
Fig. 13.
This does not resemble the Ta Ki, as Dr. Hamy supposes, but rather the Yin-Yang; yet differs from this in having a central circle (apparently a cup-shaped depression). This central circular figure, whether a boss or nave, or a cup-shaped pit, has been explained by Worsaae as a conventionalized form of the sun, and in this he is borne out by primitive American art, as we shall see. The twenty elevations which surround the stone, corresponding in number to the twenty days of the Maya month, indicate at once that we have here to do with a monument relating to the calendar.
Turning now to the development of this class of figures in primitive American art, I give first the simplest representations of the sun, such as those painted on buffalo skins by the Indians of the Plains, and scratched on the surface of rocks. The examples are selected from many of the kind published by Col. Garrick Mallery.[[181]]
