figs. [59], B2, and [60], A6, respectively), on the other hand, the katun is expressed by its normal form, which is identical with the normal form shown in figure [27], a, b. In figures [58], A5, and [59], A3, the cycle is expressed by its head variant, and the determining characteristic, the clasped hand, appears in both. Compare the cycle signs in figures [58], A5, and [59], A3, with the head variant for the cycle shown in figure [25]; d-f. The cycle glyph in the Tikal text (fig. [60], A5) is clearly the normal form. (See fig. [25], a-c.) The glyph following the cycle sign in these three texts (standing above the cycle sign in figure [60] at A4) probably stands for the period of the sixth order, the so-called great cycle. These three glyphs are redrawn in figure [61], a-c, respectively. In the Copan inscription this glyph (fig. [61], a) is a head variant, while in the Palenque and Tikal texts (a and b of the same figure, respectively) it is a normal form.
Inasmuch as these three inscriptions are the only ones in which numerical series composed of 6 or more consecutive terms are recorded, it is unfortunate that the sixth term in all three should not have been expressed by the same form, since this would have facilitated their comparison. Notwithstanding this handicap, however, the writer believes it will be possible to show clearly that the head variant in figure [61], a, and the normal forms in b and c are only variants of one and the same sign, and that all three stand for one and the same thing, namely, the great cycle, or unit of the sixth order.
Fig. 61. Signs for the great cycle (a-c), and the great-great cycle (d, e): a, Stela N, Copan; b, d, Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque; c, e, Stela 10, Tikal.
In the first place, it will be noted that each of the three glyphs just mentioned is composed in part of the cycle sign. For example, in figure [61], a, the head variant has the same clasped hand as the head-variant cycle sign in the same text (see fig. [58], A5), which, as we have seen elsewhere, is the determining characteristic of the head variant for the cycle. In figure [61], b, c, the normal forms there presented contain the entire normal form for the cycle sign; compare figure [25], a, c. Indeed, except for its superfix, the glyphs in figure [61], b, c, are normal forms of the cycle sign; and the glyph in a of the same figure, except for its superfixial element, is similarly the head variant for the cycle. It would seem, therefore, that the determining characteristics of these three glyphs must be their superfixial elements. In the normal form in figure [61], b, the superfix is very clear. Just inside the outline and parallel to it there is a line of smaller circles,
and in the middle there are two infixes like shepherds' crooks facing away from the center (*
). In c of the last-mentioned figure the superfix is of the same size and shape, and although it is partially destroyed the left-hand "shepherd's crook" can still be distinguished. A faint dot treatment around the edge can also still be traced. Although the superfix of the head variant in a is somewhat weathered, enough remains to show that it was similar to, if indeed not identical with, the superfixes of the normal forms in b and c. The line of circles defining the left side of this superfix, as well as traces of the lower ends of the two "shepherd's crook" infixes, appears very clearly in the lower part of the superfix. Moreover, in general shape and proportions this element is so similar to the corresponding elements in figure [61], b, c, that, taken together with the similarity of the other details pointed out above, it seems more than likely that all three of these superfixes are one and the same element. The points which have led the writer to identify glyphs a, b, and c in figure [61] as forms for the great cycle, or period of the sixth order, may be summarized as follows:
1. All three of these glyphs, head-variant as well as normal forms, are made up of the corresponding forms of the cycle sign plus another element, a superfix, which is probably the determining characteristic in each case.