several times, thus a 1 with pictures 1 and 10, and a 4 twice with picture 8 and a 6 with picture 3.
Now let us examine picture 10 somewhat in detail and also the signs standing above it, since both are of special significance here. This representation treats of the period of 11,960 days in which the Mercury and lunar revolutions meet. And this is proved by the ten hieroglyphs, which I will number as follows:—
| 1 | 6 | |
| 2 | 7 | |
| 3 | 8 | |
| 4 | 9 | |
| 5 | 10 | . |
I can omit Signs 3 and 8, sun and moon, since they refer to a period of time only in a general way. Sign 1 seems to me, as I have already stated, to have reference to the revolutions of Mercury. Then follows sign 2, the upper part of which is a mat and the lower the Muluc sign. I believe this sign is intended to denote that the beginning of this period is in a Muluc year. Indeed, our examination of pages 51-52 showed that it was the year 6 Muluc. The mat (Pop) is very properly the symbol of beginning, since the first month of the year was likewise called Pop. Sign 7, it seems to me, indicates that this period should be divided into lunar months (denoted by Ben-Ik), and, as I have already demonstrated in my examination of page 24, the length of the period is stated here by Signs 4, 5, 6 and 9, but the dot before the fifth should be placed before the fourth, as is actually the case on page 24. Therefore:—
| 4 = | 21 | |
| 5 = | 7200 | |
| 6 = | 4680 | |
| 9 = | 59 | |
| ——— | ||
| 11960 | . |
It is perhaps not accidental that the ninth sign is that of the fourteenth month, which signifies the expiration of the preceding lunar month, for here the month begins with the first day of the fifteenth month.
Sign 10 is doubtless Xul = end, as it so often is, for example, on pages 61-62 below. But I have not solved the meaning of the two prefixes. The end would be XII Lamat 16 Yax (13 Ix).
The picture represents a human form, which has in place of a head a design somewhat resembling the head of a lance. It is sitting with legs spread apart, and in this respect may be compared with god B of Cort. 9, who is represented in the same way. In the picture before us, the figure holds in its upraised hands the sun and moon signs, which are constantly repeated throughout the series. The Venus sign is placed between the outspread legs. In the rectangle above the figure, this sign is repeated in a more concise form, while on the left the cross b appears as the sign of union or multiplication, and on the right that of Jupiter, whose period of revolution is here multiplied by 30 (30 × 398 = 11,940). And the two Venus signs can mean nothing more than that this period of 11,960 also serves the purpose of filling up the gap between the two large Venus-solar periods of 37,960 days, like the similar process which we saw on pages 46-50.
We have examined first the series and then the pictures with the hieroglyphs belonging to them. Let us pass now, as the third step, to the examination of the two rows of hieroglyphs extending above the numbers throughout the whole section. First of all, I will again set down here the position of each of the sixty-nine groups:—