Pages 1-45.
Page 1.
As the first page is almost entirely effaced by abrasion, we know very
little of its contents. Like the second, however, it was doubtless divided
into four parts. The two pages have this also in common, that, for lack of
space, their contents are not expressed in full, but abbreviated as much as
possible.
The top section (a) of page 1 may have been filled with a sort of
frontispiece, perhaps a face with a few signs around it.
The three lower sections (b, e, d,) with the three lower of the second page
doubtless formed a whole. Each of these sections contained a normal
Tonalamatl of the commonest kind, which was introduced on the left by five
day-signs having a difference of 12 and was thus divided into five sections
of 52 days each. In sections b and d, at least, these periods seem to be
divided into equal halves of 26 days each. In d alone we recognize the
initial week day, VII, of the Tonalamatl. In each of the three divisions
there were two figures of gods, but we can recognize only the first of
these in section d as the god D.
Page 2.
This page contains four much abbreviated Tonalamatls. In the following I
will represent each Tonalamatl by setting down in a vertical line those of
the twenty days with which the principal divisions of equal length of the
Tonalamatl begin, in a horizontal line with Roman numerals the days of the
week of thirteen days on which the separate subdivisions begin, and with
the Arabic numerals the distance between these days. I will also remark
that the position of the Tonalamatls in the "Dresdensis" is not connected
at all, as in the Aztec, with certain places in the year, and that no rule
for this proceeding can be found. It is curious, however, that no
Tonalamatl in this codex begins with the day IX or Eb, which is the more
important in the last pages of the Dresden Codex.
2a.