Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/315

Rh reading of the clock. Whereas we speak of the fifteenth of June while the day is yet incomplete, yet we refer to a point in the third hour after noon in terms of two o'clock, viz. 2.20, or 2.45. "Thus for the first day of a © month we find the symbol zero, and o. zotz means that the month zip is concluded, but that the first day of zotz is not yet complete. So it is that the katuns (and other periods) are known by the name of the last day of the previous katun, 5. ahau, 3. ahau, and so on, and are not named after the day imix which 1s the first of the series of twenty day-signs, and is actually the first day of the time-periods from cycle to tun. The Maya method of dating enabled them to fix the position of a definite day without risk of confusion over long periods of time. If the day-sign with its attendant number, and the position in a definite month, is given, that day is fixed for a period of 52 years. If the number of the tun in which it occurs is also stated, it is fixed for a period of 936 years (i.e. 936 years must elapse before a day with a similar series of signs and numbers can recur). If the number of the katun is also expressed, the position is determined for 18,720 years; and if the number of the cycle as well, a period of 374,400 years.

Since the year contained 365 days, and the day-signs were 20 in number, it is obvious that the year began on one of four days. 'These days, later called "year-bearers," were, at the time of the monuments and the writing of the Dresden codex, ben, eznab, akbal and lamat, which correspond to the days which began the Mexican year, acatl, tecpatl, calli and tochtli. However, the year-bearers as given by Landa, and also as they appear in the Troano-Cortesianus codex, are kan, muluc, ix and cauac. This means that in the interval the commencement of the year had shifted (5 &#x2715; x)+1 days, x being an unknown quantity. By this time too the long count in its most elaborate form seems to have been abandoned, and the katun became the highest