GLYPHS REPRESENTING INITIAL SERIES, SHOWING USE OF BAR AND DOT NUMERALS AND HEAD-VARIANT PERIOD GLYPHS
Reducing this to units of the 1st order by means of Table [XIII], we have:
| A3 = | 9 × | 144,000 = | 1,296,000 |
| B3 = | 12 × | 7,200 = | 86,400 |
| A4a = | 10 × | 360 = | 3,600 |
| A4b = | 0 × | 20 = | 0 |
| B4a = | 0 × | 1 = | 0 |
| ———— | |||
| 1,386,000 | |||
Deducting from this number all the Calendar Rounds possible, 73 (see Table [XVI]), and applying to the remainder rules 1, 2, and 3 (pp. [139]-[141]), respectively, the date reached by the resulting calculations will be 9 Ahau 18 Zotz. Turning to our text again, the student will have little difficulty in identifying B4b as 9 Ahau, the day of the above terminal date. The form Ahau here recorded is the grotesque head, the third variant j' or k' in figure [16]. Following the next glyphs in order, A5-A6, the closing glyph of the Supplementary Series is reached in B6a. Compare this glyph with the forms in figure [65]. The coefficient of B6a is again a head-variant numeral, as in the case of the kin period glyph in B4a, above. The fleshless lower jaw and other skull-like characteristics indicate that the numeral 10 is here recorded. Compare B6a with figure [52], m-r. Since B6a is the last glyph of the Supplementary Series, the next glyph B6b should represent the month sign. By comparing the latter form with the month signs in figure [19] the student will readily recognize that the sign for Zotz in e or f is the month sign here recorded. The coefficient 18 stands above. Consequently, B4b and B6b represent the same terminal date, 9 Ahau 18 Zotz, as reached by calculation. This whole Initial Series reads 9.12.10.0.0 9 Ahau 18 Zotz, and according to the writer's view, the monument upon which it occurs (Stela 6 at Copan) was the period stone for the hotun which began with the day 9.12.5.0.1 4 Imix 4 Xul[[138]] and ended with the day 9.12.10.0.0 9 Ahau 18 Zotz, here recorded.
In plate [8], B, is figured the Initial Series from Stela 9 at Copan.[[139]] The introducing glyph stands in A1-B2 and is followed by the five period glyphs in A3-A5. The cycle is very clearly recorded in A3, the clasped hand being of a particularly realistic form. Although
the coefficient is partially effaced, enough remains to show that it was above 5, having had originally more than the one bar which remains, and less than 11, there being space for only one more bar or row of dots. In all the previous Initial Series the cycle coefficient was 9, consequently it is reasonable to assume that 4 dots originally occupied the effaced part of this glyph. If the use of 9 cycles in this number gives a terminal date which agrees with the terminal date recorded, the above assumption becomes a certainty. In B3 six katuns are recorded. Note the ornamental dotted ovals on each side of the dot in the numeral 6. Although the head for the tun in A4 is partially effaced, we are warranted in assuming that this was the period originally recorded here. The coefficient 10 appears clearly. The uinal head in B4 is totally unfamiliar and seems to have the fleshless lower jaw properly belonging to the tun head; from its position, however, the 4th in the number, we are justified in calling this glyph the uinal sign. Its coefficient denotes that 0 uinals are recorded here. Although the period glyph in A5 is also entirely effaced, the coefficient appears clearly as 0, and from position again, 5th in the number, we are justified once more in assuming that 0 kins were originally recorded, here. It seems at first glance that the above reading of the number A3-A5 rests on several assumptions:
1. That the cycle coefficient was originally 9.
2. That the effaced glyph in A4 was a tun head.