8. cumhu. Thus all Maya reckoning dates from one definite day in the past, and this day must almost certainly be an artificial date in the sense that it must have been obtained by calculation at a far later time, since it is practically four thousand years from the earliest date which can in any sense be claimed as historical.[1] The starting date itself is found at Quirigua (on a stela which also bears a date in the ninth cycle), and here it is shown to be the concluding date of a cycle thirteen, which must be the last cycle of the preceding "grand cycle." Many, if not most, of the inscriptions seem to be devoted to the calculation of dates; in the course of the glyphs, most as yet unreadable, one continually comes upon a "distance-number" expressed as above, and then the day-and-month sign to which this leads, reckoning from the date last given. In the longer inscriptions, notably that in the "temple of inscriptions" at Palenque, which contains over six hundred consecutive glyphs, these calculations extend over considerable periods of time. The great probability is that such calculations are not historical, but of a ritual nature. The Maya had no system of intercalary days by which the year of 365 days could be squared with true solar time, and it is probable that the feasts appropriate to certain seasons were shifted from month to month when the discrepancy became noticeable. Perhaps then these calculations had reference to the ritual calendar in accordance with which the various festivals were held. It must be remembered that the Maya in their count of days reckoned only elapsed time, expressing only a full tale of days. Thus each date is in one sense one day behind the date as we express it. This sounds complicated, but the difficulty disappears if we regard their method from the same point of view as our own
- ↑ The very early dates which occur at Palenque, a late site, must be themselves artificial or mythical, and so too, I believe, are the dates which occur on the celebrated Leiden plate and Tuxtla figure.
