Category: History - Ancient
In pursuance of the plan of publishing translations of valuable contributions to the study of the Maya hieroglyphs, the Museum Committee on Central American Research has the pleasure of offering the following translation of Dr. Ernst Förstemann's important Commentary on the Ma...
Unquestionably these 5 × 12 signs refer to a Venus year, more exactly to the _beginning_ of it, the period of the east. The first sign, which is a hand pointing to the right, me...
7. Part 7Among the signs on the left side we should expect to find those of the gods to whom the expiring year belonged. On page 25 it ought to be B. Sign 5, however, though it can with...
18. Part 18Hieroglyph 1a admits of explanation. It consists of four parts:--the left top is Kin, meaning sun or day, the right top is the sign of the year, the right bottom is the knife as...
9. Part 92. A deity whom we shall probably have to call F, the god of human sacrifice, is sitting on a stepped pyramidal structure (a teocalli as a place of sacrifice?). He holds somethi...
15. Part 15The second sign is found _only_ on these pages and here not less than eleven times, possibly with the addition of the effaced sign in 6b and 27b which may have been the same hie...
8. Part 83) 1,538,342 = IV Ik 15 Zac (12 Muluc). It also = 5916 × 260 + 182. The 182, however, the half of the ritual year of 364 days, is the interval between IV Ahau and IV Ik and betw...
6. Part 63) From these two statements the third follows. The distance from 1,352,400 to 1,366,560 is 14,160. This contains first the 14040, in which both the Tonalamatl and the old offic...
4. Part 4The pair at the right on the other hand is _seated_, the woman apparently on the curved handle of a vessel. The head-ornament and hieroglyph of the female figure prove that she...
11. Part 11The hieroglyphs form nine groups of four signs each. The first hieroglyph, as is always the case in this part of the Manuscript, is the sign which I have denoted by _f_, and the...
5. Part 5The subject now passes into the province of astronomy. This is already proved by sign 1, which represents the clouds, between which the sun or moon is usually pictured; the sun...
16. Part 16But the highest number, 1,538,342, was formed in a different way; it = 59,167 × 26; but the interval from IV Ahau to IV Ik = 182 = 7 × 26, and from IV Ik to IV Ahau = 78 = 3 × 26.
17. Part 17Now I think I come nearer to the solution of this problem by assuming that the pictures and hieroglyphs refer here only to the more important of the two days, XIII Akbal, and th...
2. Part 210. Day 20 = Akbal; Aztec Calli. The meaning is that of darkness, night, dark hole, then that of house as an artificial cave or as a place of shelter at night. The first picture...
3. Part 3The first picture represents the god probably as feminine, with which the illustration on page 9c should be compared. The lock of hair before sign 3, the death hieroglyph, agree...
14. Part 14It was necessary to discuss all this before I could introduce the entire series itself. In the following table I have set down the numbers and added to them the differences betw...
1. Part 1In pursuance of the plan of publishing translations of valuable contributions to the study of the Maya hieroglyphs, the Museum Committee on Central American Research has the ple...
10. Part 10The sum of the black numbers is 104, the whole is, therefore, a double Tonalamatl = 5 × 104 = 520. While the series on pages 31a-32a primarily brought the 91 and the 104 togethe...
12. Part 12Finally the six interesting hieroglyphs set down in a vertical row on the left of each of the four pages are still to be examined. I will give here in the following table what I...
19. Part 191,465,520 - 1,409,100 = 56,420 = 3 × 18,980 - 520. 3 Yax (9 Cauac) to 8 Uo (8 Ix) = 18,460 = 18,980 - 520. 56,420 - 18,460 = 37,960 = 2 × 18,980.