Chapter VI

(pp. 266-273), and plates 31 and 32. This at once distinguishes the Initial Series on the Tuxtla Statuette from every other Initial Series in the inscriptions now known. The number is preceded by a character which bears some general resemblance to the usual Initial-series introducing glyph. See figure 74. The most striking point of similarity is the trinal superfix, which is present in both signs. The student will have little difficulty in reading the number here recorded as 8 cycles, 6 katuns, 2 tuns, 4 uinals, and 17 kins, that is, 8.6.2.4.17; reducing this to units of the first order by means of Table XIII, we have:

8 × 144,000 = 1,152,000 6 × 7,200 = 43,200 2 × 360 = 720 4 × 20 = 80 17 × 1 = 17 --------- 1,196,017

Solving this Initial-series number for its terminal date, it will be found to be 8 Caban 0 Kankin. Returning once more to our text (see fig. 73), we find the day coefficient above reached, 8, is recorded just below the 17 kins and appears to be attached to some character the details of which are, unfortunately, effaced. The month coefficient 0 and the month sign Kankin do not appear in the accompanying text, at least in recognizable form. This Initial Series would seem to be, therefore, 8.6.2.4.17 8 Caban 0 Kankin, of which the day sign, month coefficient, and month sign are effaced or unrecognizable. In spite of its unusual form and the absence of the day sign, and the month coefficient and sign the writer is inclined to accept the above date as a contemporaneous Initial Series.[170]

[Illustration: FIG. 75. Drawings of the Initial Series: _A_, On the Leyden Plate. This records a Cycle-8 date and next to the Tuxtla Statuette Initial Series, is the earliest known. _B_, On a lintel from the Temple of the Initial Series, Chichen Itza. This records a Cycle-10 date, and is one of the latest Initial Series known.]

The other Initial Series showing a cycle coefficient 8 is on the Leyden Plate, a drawing of which is reproduced in figure 75, _A._ This Initial Series is far more satisfactory than the one just described, and {197} its authenticity, generally speaking, is unquestioned. The student will easily identify A1-B2 as an Initial-series introducing glyph, even though the pair of comblike appendages flanking the central element and the tun tripod are both wanting. Compare this form with figure 24. The Initial-series number, expressed by normal-form numerals and head-variant period glyphs, follows in A3-A7. The former are all very clear, and the number may be read from them in spite of certain irregularities in the corresponding period glyphs. For example, the katun head in A4 has the clasped hand, which is the distinguishing characteristic of the cycle head, and as such should have appeared in the head in A3. Neither the tun head in A5 nor the kin head in A7 shows an essential element heretofore found distinguishing these

## particular period glyphs. Indeed, the only period glyph of the five showing

the usual essential element is the uinal head in A6, where the large mouth curl appears very clearly. However, the number recorded here may be read as 8.14.3.1.12 from the sequence of the coefficients--that is, their position with reference to the introducing glyph--a reading, moreover, which is confirmed by the only known period glyph, the uinal sign, standing in the fourth position after the introducing glyph. {198}

Reducing this number to units of the first order by means of Table XIII, we have:

A3 = 8 × 144,000 = 1,152,000 A4 = 14 × 7,200 = 100,800 A5 = 3 × 360 = 1,080 A6 = 1 × 20 = 20 A7 = 12 × 1 = 12 --------- 1,253,912

Deducting from this number all the Calendar Rounds possible, 66 (see Table XVI), and applying rules 1, 2, and 3 (pp. 139, 140, and 141, respectively) to the remainder, the terminal date reached will be 1 Eb 0 Yaxkin. The day part of this date is very clearly recorded in A8, the coefficient 1 being expressed by one dot, and the day sign itself having the hook surrounded by dots, and the prominent teeth, both of which are characteristic of the grotesque head which denotes the day Eb. See figure 16, _s-u_.

The month glyph appears in A9a, the lower half of which unmistakably records the month Yaxkin. (See fig. 19, _k, l_.) Note the _yax_ and _kin_ elements in each. The only difficulty here seems to be the fact that a bar (5) is attached to this glyph. The writer believes, however, that the unexplained element () is the month coefficient in this text, and that it is an archaic form for 0. He would explain the bar as being merely ornamental. The whole Initial Series reads: 8.14.3.1.12 1 Eb 0 Yaxkin.

The fact that there are some few irregularities in this text confirms rather than invalidates the antiquity which has been ascribed to it by the writer. Dating from the period when the Maya were just emerging from savagery to the arts and practices of a semicivilized state, it is not at all surprising that this inscription should reflect the crudities and uncertainties of its time. Indeed, it is quite possible that at the very early period from which it probably dates (8.14.3.1.12 1 Eb 0 Yaxkin) the period glyphs had not yet become sufficiently conventionalized to show individual peculiarities, and their identity may have been determined solely by their position with reference to the introducing glyph, as seemingly is the case in some of the period glyphs of this text.

The Initial Series on the Leyden Plate precedes the Initial Series on Stela 3 at Tikal, the earliest contemporaneous date from the monuments, by more than 160 years, and with the possible exception of the Tuxtla Statuette above described, probably records the earliest date of Maya history. It should be noted here that Cycle-8 Initial Series are occasionally found in the Dresden Codex, though none are quite so early as the Initial Series from the Tuxtla Statuette. {199}

Passing over the Initial Series whose cycle coefficient is 9, many of which have already been described, we come next to the consideration of Initial Series whose cycle coefficient is 10, a very limited number indeed. As explained in