17ab also forms a group by itself. 17a contains a sign, which rather suggests the Bacab, upon whose period of 91 days the series belonging here is based. The Imix in 17b with a superfix is still unintelligible.
The columns end in 18 with the date IX Kan XII Kayab, the starting-point of the serpent numbers.
Pages 65—69.
I think it very likely that this section bears the same relation to pages 61-64 as pages 46-50 do to 24 and as 53-58 to 51-52. For here, too, a period of time forming the basis of the earlier section seems to be divided into smaller parts. On page 64 we recognize as the basis of the series the number 91, the quarter of the ritual year of 364 days; here we have to do with the fourfold division of 91 into 13 unequal parts. And the real starting-points on these pages, as on the previous ones, are the days III Chicchan and XIII Akbal.
The four series of numbers, the top one of which I have probably correctly restored from what still remains, are as follows:—
| 9 XII, 5 IV, 1 V, 10 II, 6 VIII, 2 X, 11 VIII, 7 II, 3 V, 12 IV, 8 XII, 4 III, 13 III. |
| 11 I, 13 I, 11 XII, 1 XIII, 8 VIII, 6 I, 4 V, 2 VII, 13 VII, 6 XIII, 6 VI, 8 I, 2 III. |
| 11 XI, 13 XI, 11 IX, 1 X, 8 V, 6 XI, 4 II, 2 IV, 13 IV, 6 X, 6 III, 8 XI, 2 XIII. |
| 9 IX, 5 I, 1 II, 10 XII, 6 V, 2 VII, 11 V, 7 XII, 3 II, 12 I, 8 IX, 4 XIII, 13 XIII. |
The first two lines, forming together a single period of 182 days, refer to a day III, as we see by the ending, and the last two to XIII, which undoubtedly refers to the III Chicchan and XIII Akbal, the days so significant in the preceding section. Hence an interval of 218 days (III Chicchan to XIII Akbal) is to be assumed between the second and third lines, with the addition of which interval each of the two periods extends over 400 days.
The first and fourth series have the same difference; and the second and third correspond with one another in this respect. In the first and fourth the differences follow a rule, viz:—as if one were walking in a ring having on its edge the numbers 1 to 13, and kept stepping backward four numbers. The differences of the second and third series apparently do not follow any rule. Hence I think that the fourth series follows the third by mistake and ought rightfully to precede it. Only the fifth member in the first and second series has the same day VIII and the day V in the third and fourth series, otherwise the week-days of each series differ from those of the others.
As I regard III Chicchan and XIII Akbal as unquestionably the starting-points, I will here give a table of the days on which each of the twenty-six members of each series must fall and at the same time I will indicate for each day its number from the beginning of the series. Accordingly the first 182 days present the following appearance:—