1. The rainy season seems to have been delayed; the beginning of the year
draws near. B is kneeling on a kind of footstool, the hatchet is in his
right hand and his left hand holds a kind of chisel with which he is
carving something out of the trunk of a tree. The purpose of the work is
indicated by the god's own head directly below (probably placed in front of
the tree as a model?). No doubt this is intended to represent the making of
the statue of the god of the new year destined for the beginning of the
year, as we know it from pages 25-28.
Corresponding with this is the first hieroglyph denoting the year with Yax
as a superfix, and also the sixth being the sign to which in the article in
the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie cited above, I attributed the meaning of
change of the year. I cannot decide whether the third sign is intended for
an Imix-Chuen with the sign of the south as a superfix, the fifth for a
Kan-Imix and the fourth for the head without the under jaw.
2. Page 42. Prayer for rain. B (that is to say, his priest) is seated
apparently on the same footstool. He is gazing upward and presenting a
vessel containing an offering, the nature of which is uncertain. The vessel
ends in a tube; cf. page 67b.
The first, fifth and sixth hieroglyphs are not finished, and the third is
Kan-Imix.
3. The rain-goddess promises aid. B is seated opposite the old red goddess,
who is holding intercourse with him. The god is seated on the Caban sign
(earth) and the goddess on Muluc (rain?).
The first, fifth and sixth hieroglyphs are also unfinished; the third is
Imix with its meaning intensified by the prefixed Yax (the luxuriantly
growing grain?).
4. B is again tilling the ground in the manner already familiar to us.
Under him lies his own head with the Imix-Kan sign, denoting food and
drink, as a superfix. The first hieroglyph is the sign of the eighteenth
month Cumhu, _i.e._, of the end of the year. The third is a Kin-Akbal, the
fifth a Kan-Imix, the sixth is not finished, and the fourth may be intended
for the head without the lower jaw, but it is carelessly drawn.
5. Page 43. The solicited rain begins. The goddess with the serpent on her
head is pouring streams of water from her vessel.
The first hieroglyph repeats the month Cumhu, denoting the beginning of
rain, before the close of the year; the third is the sign of the goddess
met with on page 39b, here also with the sign for the west as a prefix; the
fifth is her determinative, the serpent, and the fourth is Kan-Imix.
If the first sign in the first group is not regarded as the sign of the
year, but as that of the sixteenth month (Pax) resembling it, and the fact
is taken into consideration that there is an interval of 34 days between
the second and fourth groups and of 40 days between the second and fifth,
this would be found to correspond with the interval between the months Pax
and Cumhu.
Pages 43b--44b.
This is the fourth and last series of the first part of the Manuscript; the
first is on page 24, the second on pages 31a to 32a, and the third on page
45a. The first series is quite by itself, but the second and third are
similar in form to this fourth, though their initial days are different
from those of the latter:--XIII Akbal, XIII Oc and III Lamat. All three
begin with differences which are divisible by 13:--91, 104 and 78, equal to
7, 8, and 6 × 13. All three aim and arrive at numbers which are common
factors of 260, 104 and 364, and therefore also of 3640, which last number
is written out in the other two series, while in this series it can only
appear later on and then, increased by multiplication.
Since this series has the difference 78, the week day numbers remain the
same, while those of the month days must advance by 18 each, that is, from
the hidden starting-point III Lamat they go on to III Cimi, III Kan, III
Ik, III Ahau, etc., until the tenth member of the series is 10 × 78,
_i.e._, 3 × 260 and thus comes again to the day III Lamat.
From 780 onward this number is itself always the difference of the higher
terms of the present series. At the same time 780 days are the duration of
the apparent revolution of Mars, which is here supplementary, as it were,
since page 24 treated of the revolutions of the sun and of Venus, and also
of those of the moon and of Mercury. Hence in the present passage we find
the numbers 1560, 2340, 3120 and 3900, always accompanied by the day III
Lamat. The larger numbers require a few corrections; I read them 13,260 (17
× 780), 15,600 (20 × 780), 31,200 (40 × 780), 62,400 (80 × 780) and 72,540
(93 × 780). The very largest again are correctly set down; first 109,200
equal to 140 × 780, but here also equal to 1050 × 104 and 300 × 364, so
that in this series the goal aimed at is not reached until later than it is
in the two preceding series. Then follows 131,040 = 168 × 780, 1260 × 104,
360 × 364, but finally 151,320, which number = 1455 × 104 and 194 × 780,
but is not divisible by 364.
Detached in the usual way from this series on the left of page 43 is the
number 1,435,980. Above and below it is the day III Lamat, further down IV
Ahau, and between them is 352 in a red circle. This number seems to have
been obtained in the following way:--The writer began with the distance
between III Lamat and IV Ahau, which is 92, added to it 172 × 260 = 44,720,
and subtracted the result 44,812 from 13 Ahau-Katuns = 1,480,440. The
remainder was 1,435,628, which number would correspond to the date III
Lamat 6 Zotz (4 Kan), which, however, is suppressed in the Manuscript. The
352 = 260 + 92 was added to this sum, and the result was the 1,435,980
written out in the Manuscript, _i.e._, a day IV Ahau 13 Zip (5 Muluc). Now
this number is the one sought; it is 5523 × 260 = 1841 × 780 = 3945 × 364,
and hence must also be equal to 263 × 5460, since the 780 and 364 are
united in 5460. According to our present knowledge, it would seem to lie in
the future, but not far from the present; the solar and Mars revolutions
are united in it. There is but a single hieroglyph here, the hieroglyph of
the animal which is the chief subject of the next section; from which it
appears that the two sections are closely connected.
Pages 44b--45b.
This section supplements the pictures and hieroglyphs belonging to the
series just examined. Therefore it likewise extends over 78 days and
divides them as follows:--