FIRST PART.
Pages 1-45.
Page 1.
As the first page is almost entirely effaced by abrasion, we know very little of its contents. Like the second, however, it was doubtless divided into four parts. The two pages have this also in common, that, for lack of space, their contents are not expressed in full, but abbreviated as much as possible.
The top section (a) of page 1 may have been filled with a sort of frontispiece, perhaps a face with a few signs around it.
The three lower sections (b, e, d,) with the three lower of the second page doubtless formed a whole. Each of these sections contained a normal Tonalamatl of the commonest kind, which was introduced on the left by five day-signs having a difference of 12 and was thus divided into five sections of 52 days each. In sections b and d, at least, these periods seem to be divided into equal halves of 26 days each. In d alone we recognize the initial week day, VII, of the Tonalamatl. In each of the three divisions there were two figures of gods, but we can recognize only the first of these in section d as the god D.
Page 2.
This page contains four much abbreviated Tonalamatls. In the following I will represent each Tonalamatl by setting down in a vertical line those of the twenty days with which the principal divisions of equal length of the Tonalamatl begin, in a horizontal line with Roman numerals the days of the week of thirteen days on which the separate subdivisions begin, and with the Arabic numerals the distance between these days. I will also remark that the position of the Tonalamatls in the "Dresdensis" is not connected at all, as in the Aztec, with certain places in the
year, and that no rule for this proceeding can be found. It is curious, however, that no Tonalamatl in this codex begins with the day IX or Eb, which is the more important in the last pages of the Dresden Codex.