Many early monuments of the Mayas have inscriptions with an enlarged Introducing Glyph containing a variable element indicating the title or principal subject matter of the inscription. Next follows the number of elapsed days from the epoch of a Mundane Era. This starting point is uniformly the day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu and the complete Initial Series date not only states the number of elapsed days, but also the name and number of the day reached and its position in a Mayan month.
The Initial Series is normally followed by a Supplementary Series which concerns the lunar calendar, and often there are numbers of days to be added to or subtracted from the Initial Series date: these are called Secondary Series. Also Period Ending dates are used, these being merely abbreviated dates which correspond to indicated round numbers in the day count.
The Initial Series analyzed in [Plate XXIII] actually records the number 1,401,217. This number does not, however, reach the day 12 Caban declared immediately after it or the month position 5 Kayab recorded in glyph 10b. When 13 tuns are corrected to 12 tuns on the theory that the sculptor did not follow copy, we do reach 12 Caban 5 Kayab. Another check comes when we add the Secondary Series of 2423 days and reach 4 Ahau 13 Yax ending an even katun.
Dates of Dedication.
Initial Series dates are especially common on stelæ at cities of the First Empire, mostly located in the southern part of the Mayan Area. While it is impossible to read much of the texts which accompany these dates nevertheless it is a remarkable fact that when we arrange the monuments in their artistic order we find that the inscribed dates in the great majority of cases fall in the same order. This leads us to conclude that the dates are practically contemporaneous with the carving and setting up of the monuments. Now the above is especially true when the inscription gives a simple Initial Series date. When more than one date is given the historic one appears in most instances to be the latest, but in a few instances it appears to be a specially emphasized intermediate date. In addition, then, to contemporaneous dates there are some that refer to the past and others that refer to the future.
Some writers have assumed that the stelæ and other inscribed monuments were primarily time markers set up at the end of hotun (or five year) periods. This seems an unnecessarily narrow view. We can demonstrate that some inscriptions deal with astronomical facts covering long stretches of time. It is also apparent that many of the sculptures represent conquests and it is extremely likely that portraits of actual rulers are to be seen in certain carvings. It would be too much to expect events to happen regularly at the end of time periods and as a matter of fact we find at different cities repeated dates that do not occupy such positions. These repeated dates would seem to recall events of special importance to the city in question.
The running co-ordination between the apparent order of the artistic styles and inscribed dates permits us to measure very accurately the rate of change in art which was rapid, indeed, at certain times. The style of carving, on the other hand, enables us to put into definite 52 year periods many of the calendar round dates—if these are to be regarded as contemporaneous. The result is that for the First Empire, as it has been called, there is an exceedingly accurate chronology. After the fall and abandonment of the great southern cities dates are rare and we have to fall back upon remnants of history preserved after the coming of the Spaniards.
Hieroglyphs.
Mayan hieroglyphs resemble the Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphs only in being “sacred writing” that is not based upon an alphabet. The styles and symbols are entirely different. No Rosetta Stone has yet been discovered to give us inscriptions in more than one system of writing in Central America. The great use of hieroglyphic inscriptions on monuments was characteristic of the earlier period of Mayan history and at a later time the writing was reduced to books. Bishop Landa obtained what he supposed was a Mayan alphabet, but what he really obtained was a list of signs representing among other sounds the particular sounds he had asked for.
The phonetic use of syllables rather than of simple sounds or letters is probably an important feature of Mayan writing. Many hieroglyphs are pictographic and consist of abbreviated pictures of the thing intended or of some object connected with it. Often a head stands for the entire body. The following list practically exhausts our knowledge of Mayan hieroglyphs:—