Note 41-* — CONCLUSION

See Memoranda on the Chilam Balam Calendars, C. P. Bowditch, 1901. The obscurities of the Chronicles render the questions connected with Ahpula’s death exceedingly difficult. For instance, the immediate context in the books of Mani and Tizimin make the date 1536, as given in numerals, an impossible one. But, if the date as given in Maya terms is to be accepted at all (and it certainly is too specific to be rejected), then by the long count such a date must have been either 1502, 5350, or 12,786 years after the date of Stela 9, Copan. Mr. Bowditch favors the lower figure, chiefly because it is the lower, and thus puts Stela 9 at A. D. 34. To get this date the longest possible distance from Ahpula’s death to the end of the katun must be used—that is, “6 tuns short” must be taken to mean “almost 7 tuns short.” I can only say here that if, in correcting the figures 1536, as demanded by the immediate context, we make the simplest possible correction, and put them one katun earlier, 1516, and then take as the unexpired time to the end of the katun the shortest of the three terms given as possible, or 5 tuns 139 days, bringing the end of Katun 13-Ahau on Jan. 28, 1522, we not only bring the end of Katun 11-Ahau within the year 1541, as is most positively stated by the practically contemporary Pech Chronicle, but we also bring in line nearly all the important events of the Chronicles, from the fall of Mayapan, ca. 1450, the coming of the Spaniards, and the smallpox, in 11-Ahau (1521 to 1541), the conversion to Christianity in 9-Ahau, down to Landa’s death (1579) in 7-Ahau; as well as many outside references. Any other combination requires harsher emendations somewhere else. But the above choice of the term of 5 tuns 139 days, thus seemingly called for, means that Stela 9 at Copan is dated, by the long count, 5350 years before Ahpula’s death, or B. C. 3824. Whether this is right, is a question for the future.