to the retrogression of the planet, raises increased difficulties. It is curious that the fourth of these signs on page 46 is like the fourteenth on page 49 (A), and perhaps the two following refer to the same god K; the first two are separated by 1494 days and the latter by 1508 days.
We come now to the right half of the pages. Interpretation is rendered impossible by the destruction of the top part. For we do not even know whether the upper hieroglyphs occupied three or four rows each, the latter being the case at least in part, and there may have been a superscription over the day signs in the left half.
These upper signs are always followed by a picture, then three rows of hieroglyphs, then a second picture and next two rows of hieroglyphs and lastly a third picture.
Let us first examine the pictures:—
At the top of pages 46-49 there is on each page a deity, who with his right arm extended is offering or receiving something. He is seated on astronomical signs; on page 46 B's head accompanies these signs. On pages 46 and 48 the deity is undoubtedly the old woman with tiger claws, who usually pours streams of water from a jug (compare pages 39, 43 and 74). I cannot identify the personage on pages 47 and 49. The object in the deity's hand seems invariably to be a cup of foaming pulque. On page 49 another object is placed above the cup, which I am unable to determine. The fifth, page 50, differs from the other four and forms the connecting link, as it were, between the upper row of pictures and the middle and lower ones. Here, too, a personage is represented sitting on astronomical signs and exhibiting symptoms of violent anger toward a second person opposite him holding the cup in his hands. Both personages are painted as warriors.
The middle pictures on all the pages represent a warrior in a half-kneeling, half-crouching posture, holding spears or a shield in the right hand and brandishing a hatchet in the left. The shield on page 46 is doubtless a representation of the sun-glyph; and on 47 the Venus sign is combined with the head ornament. The hieroglyphs of these deities occupy the first place in the middle line of the three lines above the pictures.
The five lower pictures represent a creature lying on the ground, pierced by arrows and spears. On page 47 it is a jaguar; at any rate it is the same animal found on pages 29a, 30c and 45c; a very similar creature pierced by arrows is given in the Cod. Vat. B.; compare also the pictures in Seler's "Venus-periode," page 371. On the other four pages this creature is in human guise. On page 50 where, differing from the other four pages, this figure is represented lying with the head to the right, it is plainly shedding tears. Seler takes this figure to be E on page 48 and the tortoise on page 49. The varying periods of time occupied by the revolution of the planets is plainly conceived of as contest. But who is the victor in this contest? The planet with the longer or with the shorter period of revolution? Owing to obliteration only a small part of the hieroglyphs of the top section is legible.
On page 46 we see the Venus sign and E's hieroglyph; on page 47 the sign c, which occurs frequently on these pages, and is probably always connected with Moan (the Pleiades and thus with the year). The numeral 1, prefixed to an obliterated sign on page 47, is still legible, and we find it repeated on the lower part of the same page. There is rather more to be seen on page 48:—first the elongated head q with the Ben-Ik superfix, then the sign a, beside it that for the west with a prefix, in the line below an Ahau, next, an Akbal sign with the prefix of the north, and lastly a Moan sign.
On page 49 we see sign c again occupying the first place, then o with Ben-Ik, and in the lower line the year sign with that for 20 or the moon as a superfix, and to the right of it the head with the Akbal eye, probably denoting D.