According to step 5 (p. [151]), the day reached should follow immediately the last period glyph, which in this case was in A6; hence the day should be recorded in A7. This glyph has a coefficient 4, but the glyph does not resemble either of the forms for Ahau shown in B5, plate [6], A, or in B4a, C of the same plate. However, by comparing this glyph with the second variant for the day sign Ahau in figure [16], h'-i', the two forms will be found to be identical, and we may accept A7 as recording the day 4 Ahau. Immediately following in A8 is the month sign, again out of its usual place as in plate 6, C. Comparing it with the month signs in figure [19], it will be found to exactly correspond with the sign for Yax in q-r. The coefficient is 13. Therefore the terminal date recorded, 4 Ahau 13 Yax, agrees with the terminal date reached by calculation, and the whole Initial Series reads 9.15.0.0.0 4 Ahau 13 Yax. This date marks the close not only of a hotun in the Long Count, but of a katun as well.
In B, plate [7], is figured the Initial Series from Stela A at Copan.[[132]] The introducing glyph appears in A1 B1, and is followed by the Initial-series number in A2-A4. The student will have no difficulty in picking out the clasped hand in A2, the oval in the top of the head in B2, the fleshless lower jaw in A3, the large mouth curl in B3, and the flaring subfix in A4, which are the essential elements of the head variants for the cycle, katun, tun, uinal, and kin, respectively. Compare these glyphs with figures [25], d-f, [27], e-h, [29], e-g, [31], d-f, and [34], e-g, respectively. The coefficients of these period glyphs are all normal forms and the student will have no difficulty in reading this number as 9.14.19.8.0.[[133]]
Reducing this by means of Table [XIII] to units of the 1st order, we have:
| A2 = | 9 × | 144,000 = | 1,296,000 |
| B2 = | 14 × | 7,200 = | 108,000 |
| A3 = | 19 × | 360 = | 6,840 |
| B3 = | 8 × | 20 = | 160 |
| A4 = | 0 × | 1 = | 0 |
| ———— | |||
| 1,403,800 | |||
Deducting from this all the Calendar Rounds possible, 73 (see Table [XVI]), and applying rules 1 and 2 (pp. [139] and [140], respectively), to the remainder, the day reached will be 12 Ahau. And applying rule 3 (p. [141]), the month reached will be 18 Cumhu, giving for the terminal date as reached by calculation 12 Ahau 18 Cumhu. The day should be recorded in B4, and an examination of this glyph shows that its coefficient is 12, the day coefficient reached by calculation. The glyph itself, however, is unlike the forms for Ahau previously encountered in plate [6], A, B5 and C, B4b, and in plate [7], A, A7. Turning
now to the forms for the day sign Ahau in figure [16], it is seen that the form in A4 resembles the third variant j' or k', the grotesque head, and it is clear that the day 12 Ahau is here recorded. At first sight the student might think that the month glyph follows in A5, but a closer inspection of this form shows that this is not the case. In the first place, since the day sign is Ahau the month coefficient must be either 3, 8, 13, or 18, not 7, as recorded (see Table [VII]), and, in the second place, the glyph itself in A5 bears no resemblance whatsoever to any of the month signs in figure [19]. Consequently the month part of the Initial-series terminal date of this text should follow the closing glyph of the Supplementary Series. Following along the glyphs next in order, we reach in A9 a glyph with a coefficient 9, although the sign itself bears no resemblance to the month-glyph "indicators" heretofore encountered (see fig. [65]).
The glyph following, however, in A9b is quite clearly 18 Cumhu (see fig. [19], g'-h'), which is the month part of the terminal date as reached by calculation. Therefore, since A9a has the coefficient 9 it is probable that it is a variant of the month-glyph "indicator";[[134]] and consequently that the month glyph itself follows, as we have seen, in B9. In other words, the terminal date recorded, 12 Ahau 18 Cumhu, agrees with the terminal date reached by calculation, and the whole text, so far as it can be deciphered, reads 9.14.19.8.0 12 Ahau 18 Cumhu. The student will note that this Initial Series precedes the Initial Series in plate [7], A by exactly 10 uinals, or 200 days. Compare A and B, plate [7].
In plate [8], A, is figured the Initial Series from Stela 6 at Copan.[[135]] The introducing glyph occupies the space of four glyph-blocks, A1-B2, and there follows in A3-B4a the Initial-series number 9.12.10.0.0. The cycle glyph in A3 is partially effaced; the clasped hand, however, the determining characteristic of the cycle head, may still be distinguished. The katun head in B3 is also unmistakable, as it has the same superfix as in the normal form for the katun. At first sight the student might read the bar and dot coefficient as 14, but the two middle crescents are purely decorative and have no numerical value, and the numeral recorded here is 12 (see pp. 88-91). Although the tun and uinal period glyphs in A4a and A4b,[[136]] respectively, are effaced, their coefficients may be distinguished as 10 and 0, respectively. In such a case the student is perfectly justified in assuming that the tun and uinal signs originally stood here. In B4a the kin period glyph is expressed by its normal form and the kin coefficient by a head-variant numeral, the clasped hand of which indicates that it stands for 0 (see fig. [53], s-w).[[137]] The number here recorded is 9.12.10.0.0.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 57 PLATE 8