Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/56

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A STUDY OF THE MANUSCRIPT TROANO.

columns. The reader must bear in mind that, although we have numbered the months as commencing with the left-hand column, which has 1 for its upper figure, yet this only holds good when the year is 1 Cauac, 1 Kan, 1 Muluc, or 1 Ix, and for none of the other years. The first month of the year may be any one of the thirteen columns, thus: 8 Cauac, 8 Kan, 8 Muluc, and 8 Ix have the second column, which has 8 for its upper figure, as their first month; then the one commencing with 2 will be the second month column, that with 9 the third, with 3 the fourth, with 10 the fifth, with 4 the sixth, with 11 the seventh, with 5 the eighth, with 12 the ninth, with 6 the tenth, with 13 the eleventh, the last or one commencing with 7 the twelfth. Now we go back to the first—commencing with 1—which will be the thirteenth, with 8 the fourteenth, with 2 the fifteenth, with 9 the sixteenth, with 3 the seventeenth, with 10 the eighteenth. Thus we count through and go back to the left, and so continue until we reach the number of the month desired. We will now illustrate the use of this table by some examples, but first we must warn the reader not to confuse the day of the month with the day of the week; the numbers of the days of the month are given in the extreme right-hand column of the table, which is not counted as one of the thirteen; the days of the week, as heretofore stated, are always given thus: 3 Ymix, 12 Caban, 7 Oc, &c.

Now, to illustrate the method of using the table, let us find in what months and on what days of the months in the years 11 Cauac, 11 Kan, 11 Muluc, and 11 Ix, the day 8 Ahau will fall. For the year 11 Cauac we must look to the Cauac column. We find here that Ahau is the second day of the month; running our eyes along the second transverse line, we find the figure 8 in the thirteenth column, which has 7 as the top number; going back to the column which has 11 as the upper or top number and counting the columns up to this (that has 7 as the top number), we find it to be the sixth month. We thus ascertain that 8 Ahau of the year 1 1 Cauac is the second day of the sixth month. To find where it falls in 11 Kan we must first find Ahau in the Kan column. By running our eyes down this column we see that it is the 17th day of the month; then, by looking along the 17th transverse line we find the figure 8 to be in the column which has 5 at the top, which is the second or fifteenth from that with