This highly specialized use of the numbers in Maya texts has determined the first step to be taken in the process of deciphering them. Since the primary unit of the calendar was the day, all numbers should be reduced to terms of this unit, or in other words, to units of the first order, or place.[[89]] Hence, we may accept the following as the first step in ascertaining the meaning of any number:
First Step in Solving Maya Numbers
Reduce all the units of the higher orders to units of its first, or lowest, order, and then add the resulting quantities together.
The application of this rule to any Maya number, no matter of how many terms, will always give the actual number of primary units which it contains, and in this form it can be more conveniently utilized in connection with the calendar than if it were left as recorded, that is, in terms of its higher orders.
The reduction of units of the higher orders to units of the first order has been explained on pages [105]-[133], but in order to provide the student with this same information in a more condensed and accessible form, it is presented in the following tables, of which Table [XIII] is to be used for reducing numbers to their primary units in the inscriptions, and Table [XIV] for the same purpose in the codices.
Table XIII. VALUES OF HIGHER PERIODS IN TERMS OF LOWEST, IN INSCRIPTIONS
| 1 | great cycle | = | [[90]]2,880,000 |
| 1 | cycle | 144,000 | |
| 1 | katun | 7,200 | |
| 1 | tun | 360 | |
| 1 | uinal | 20 | |
| 1 | kin | 1 |