Sylvanus Griswold Morley

“ Indeed, as primitive man saw nature, day was the only division of time upon which he could absolutely rely. The waxing and waning of the moon, with its everchanging shape and occasional obscuration by clouds, as well as its periodic disappearances from the heavens all combined to render that luminary of little account in measuring the passage of time. ”

“ That we have succeeded in deciphering, up to the present time, only the calendric parts of the inscriptions, the chronological skeleton of Maya history as it were, stripped of the events which would vitalize it, should not discourage the student nor lead him to minimize the importance of that which is already gained. Thirty years ago the Maya inscriptions were a sealed book, yet to-day we read in the glyphic writing the rise and fall of the several cities in relation to one another, and follow the course of Maya development even though we can not yet fill in the accompanying background. ”

“ It is a difficult question to answer, and the best authorities have seemed disposed to take a middle course, assigning as the contemporaneous date of the codex a date about the middle of Cycle 9. Says Professor Förstemann (Bulletin 28, p. 402) on the subject:
In my opinion my demonstration also definitely proves that these large numbers [the Initial Series] do not proceed from the future to the past, but from the past, through the present, to the future. Unless I am quite mistaken, the highest numbers among them seem actually to reach into the future, and thus to have a prophetic meaning. ”

“ The God of War (note his name glyph, below) .
Closely associated with the God of Death is the God of War, who probably stood as well for the larger idea of death by violence. He is characterized (fig. 4) by a black line painted on his face, sometimes curving, sometimes straight, supposed to be symbolical of war paint, or, according to others, of his gaping wounds. He appears in the picture-writings as the Death God's companion. He presides with him over the body of a sacrificial victim, and again follows him applying torch and knife to the habitations of man. ”

“ Every red number in (2) is used once with every day sign in (1) to designate a day which is reached in counting one of the black numbers in (3) forward from another of the days recorded by (1) and (2) . The most important point for the student to grasp in studying the Maya tonalamatl is the fundamental difference between the use of the red numbers and the black numbers. The former are used only as day coefficients, and together with the day signs show the days which begin the divisions and subdivisions of the tonalamatl. ”

“ The Maya entertained an excessive and constant fear of death, many of their religious practices having no other end in view than that of warding off the dread visitor. After death there followed a prolonged period of sadness in the bereaved family, the days being given over to fasting, and the more restrained indulgence in grief, and the nights to dolorous cries and lamentations, most pitiful to hear. Among the common people the dead were wrapped in shrouds ”

“ In order properly to present this important subject, it is first necessary to consider briefly how we count and number our own units of time, since through an understanding of these practices we shall better comprehend those of the ancient Maya.
It is well known that our methods of counting time are inconsistent with each other. For example, in describing the time of day, that is, in counting hours, minutes, and seconds, we speak in terms of elapsed time. ”

“ The essential element of the cycle sign, however, the clasped hand, appears only in the head of this bird, where the student will readily find it. Indeed, the head of this full-figure form is nothing more nor less than a head-variant cycle glyph, and as such determines the meaning of the whole figure. Compare this head with figure 25, d-f, or with any of the other head-variant cycle forms figured in the preceding texts. This grotesque "cycle bird," perhaps the parrot, is bound to the back of an anthropomorphic figure, which we have every reason to suppose records the cycle coefficient. ”

“ In A4b the student will have little difficulty in recognizing the profile variant of the day sign Ahau (see fig. 16, h', i') . This at once gives us the missing value for the kin coefficient in B3, for the day Ahau can never be reached in an Initial Series if the kin coefficient is other than 0. Similarly, the day Imix can never be reached in Initial Series if the kin coefficient is other than 1, etc. Every one of the 20 possible kin coefficients, 0 to 19, has a corresponding day to which it will always lead, that is, Ahau to Cauac, respectively (see Table I) . ”

“ It is suggested that in A1 we may have a sign representing "eternity," "this world," "time"; that is to say, a sign denoting the duration of the present world-epoch, the epoch of which the Maya civilization occupied only a small part. The middle dot of the upper element, being 1, denotes that this world-epoch is the first, or present, one, and the whole glyph itself might mean "the present world." The appropriateness of such a glyph ushering in every Initial-series date is apparent. ”

“ No one could have forgotten the number of the current cycle.
When we come to the next lower period, however, the katun, we find a different state of affairs. The numbers belonging to this period were changing every 20 (exactly, 19.71 +) years; that is, three or four times in the lifetime of many individuals; hence, there was plenty of opportunity for confusion about the number of the katun in which a particular event occurred. Consequently, in order to insure accuracy the katun is almost always the unit used in Period-ending dating. ”

“ If the Maya numerical system had no vital need for a character to express the number 20, a sign to represent zero was absolutely {93}indispensable. Indeed, any numerical system which rises to a second order of units requires a character which will signify, when the need arises, that no units of a certain order are involved; as zero units and zero tens, for example, in writing 100 in our own Arabic notation.
The character zero seems to have played an important part in Maya calculations, and signs for it have been found in both the codices and the inscriptions. ”

“ Usually Secondary Series are to be counted from the dates next preceding them in the inscriptions in which they are found, though occasionally they are counted from other dates which may not even be expressed, and which can be ascertained only by counting backward the distance number from its corresponding terminal date. The accuracy of a Secondary series date depends entirely on the fact that it has been counted from an Initial Series, or at least from another Secondary series date, which in turn has been derived from an Initial Series. ”

“ In other words, two different sets of numerals were used in describing the Maya days: (1) The numerals 1 to 13, inclusive, the coefficients of the days, and an integral part of their names; and (2) The numerals 0 to 19, inclusive, showing the positions of these days in the divisions of the year—the uinals, and the xma kaba kin. It is clear from the foregoing, moreover, that the number of possible day coefficients (13) has nothing whatever to do in determining the number of days in the period next higher. ”

“ An examination of figure 60 shows that the glyphs which we have identified as the signs for the higher periods (A2, A3, A4, and A5,) contain one element common to all—the sign for the cycle, or period of 144,000 days. Indeed, A5 is composed of this sign alone with its usual coefficient of 9. Moreover, the next glyphs (A6, A7, A8, and A9 [83] ) are the signs for the katun, tun, uinal, and kin, respectively, and, together with A5, form a regular descending series of 5 terms, all of which are of known value. ”

“ The head for 9 occurs more frequently than all of the others with the exception of the zero head, because the great majority of all Initial Series record dates which fell after the completion of Cycle 9, but before the completion of Cycle 10. Consequently, 9 is the coefficient attached to the cycle glyph in almost all Initial Series. [69] The head for 9 is shown in figure 52, g-l. It has for its essential characteristic the dots on the lower cheek or around the mouth (*) . Sometimes these occur in a circle or again irregularly. ”

“ In common with these other civilized peoples of antiquity the ancient Maya had realized in the development of their chronological system the need for a fixed starting point, from which all subsequent events could be reckoned, and for this purpose they selected one of the dates of their Calendar Round. This was a certain date, 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, [36] that is, a day named 4 Ahau, which occupied the 9th position in the month Cumhu, the next to last division of the Maya year (see Table III) . ”

“ According to Bishop Landa, [11] who wrote his remarkable history of Yucatan in 1565, the Maya of that day were a tall race, active and strong. In childhood the forehead was artificially flattened and the ears and nose were pierced for the insertion of earrings and nose-ornaments, of which the people were very fond. Squint-eye was considered a mark of beauty, and mothers strove to disfigure their children in this way by suspending pellets of wax between their eyes in order to make them squint, thus securing the desired effect. ”

“ In Egyptian texts of any given period the simple phonetic elements or signs are unchanging under all conditions of composition. Like the letters of our own alphabet, they never vary and may be recognized as unfailingly. On the other hand, in Maya texts each glyph is in itself a finished picture, dependent on no other for its meaning, and consequently the various elements entering into it undergo very considerable modifications in order that the resulting composite character may not only be a balanced and harmonious {24}design, but also may exactly fill its allotted space. ”

“ Under pressure of the new environment, at best a parched and waterless land, the Maya civilization doubtless underwent important modification. [5] The period of colonization, with the strenuous labor by which it was marked, was not conducive to progress in the arts. At first the struggle for bare existence must have absorbed in a large measure the energies of all, and not until their foothold was secure could much time have been available for the cultivation of the gentler pursuits. ”

“ In spite of some weathering, the day part of the terminal date appears in glyph 7 immediately after the kin glyph in 6. The coefficient, though somewhat eroded, appears quite clearly as 2 (2 dots separated by an ornamental crescent) . The day sign itself is the profile variant for Ahau shown in figure 16, h', i'. The agreement of the day recorded with the day determined by calculations based on the assumption that the kin and uinal coefficients are both 0, of itself tends to establish the accuracy of these assumptions. ”