Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/258

192 As I have already shown, the important event alluded to by Perez as occurring in the year 7 Cauac of the 8th Ahau, which he fixes in 1393, really happened in 1435, as we see by correcting the manifest error of his calculation. This event, I believe, was the destruction of Mayapan, which this manuscript asserts took place in the 8th Ahau.

The two statements in this document—first (in the 11th paragraph), that the first arrival of the Spaniards, at the close of the 2d Ahau (1518), was 60 years after the fall of Mayapan; second (12th paragraph), that the year 1536 was 60 years after this event—cannot both be correct; one or the other, or both, must be erroneous. Rejecting the latter, and counting three Ahaues, the number the author gives, at 24 years each, instead of 20 (the length at which he estimates them), we have 72 years, which, deducted, carries us back to 1446. This corresponds exactly with Landa's computation. Herrera says that this happened, "according to the reckoning of the Indians, about seventy years before the Spaniards came into Yucatan," which would place it in 1448. According to the tables I have given, the 8th Ahau included the years 1423-1446, which agrees exactly with Brasseur's calculation (Hist des Nat. Civ ), in which work he appears to have adopted 24 years as the number to an Ahau, instead of 20, as in his notes to Landa and the Perez Manuscript. As I was not aware of this fact until after the preceding part of this paper was delivered for publication, I call attention to it now, as it is apparent from this that his comparison of the dates of the two systems must agree throughout precisely with what is given in my Table XVII.

If we are correct in counting 24 years to an Ahau, then it is certain the 8th must have included from 1423 to 1446; and if the document referred to by Perez (which unfortunately was lost) was right in stating that 7 Caua,c was the year of the destruction, it occurred in 1435.

We learn from Herrera (loc. cit.) that this city was destroyed five hundred years after it was built. As a matter of course, this is given in round numbers, and cannot be considered as exact; yet it will afford some aid in our comparison. Deducting 500 from 1435 gives us the year 935 as the date of the founding of the city, which may be considered as at least approximately correct. Counting back by Ahaues, we ascertain that this would fall in the 11th of the preceding grand cycle.