Note 886 — Chapter XI

16th Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth. 1894, p. xcvi. In "The Maya Year" (1894) Cyrus Thomas shows that "the year recorded in the Dresden codex consisted of 18 months of 20 days each, with 5 supplemental days, or of 365 days" (ib.). S. G. Morley points out (Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 57, pp. 44-5) that though the Maya doubtless knew that the true length of the year exceeded 365 days by 6 hours, yet no interpolation of intercalary days was actually made, as this would have thrown the whole calendar into confusion. The priests apparently corrected the calendar by additional calculations to show how far the recorded year was ahead of the true year. Those who have persistently appealed to these Maya-Aztec calendric systems as convincing proofs of Asiatic influences in the evolution of American cultures will now have to show where these influences come in. As a matter of fact the systems are fundamentally distinct, the American showing the clearest indications of local development, as seen in the mere fact that the day characters of the Maya codices were phonetic, i.e. largely rebuses explicable only in the Maya language, which has no affinities out of America. A careful study of the Maya calendric system based both on the codices and the inscriptions has been made by C. P. Bowditch, The Numeration, Calendar Systems and Astronomical Knowledge of the Mayas, Cambridge, Mass. 1910. The Aztec month of 20 days is also clearly indicated by the 20 corresponding signs on the great Calendar Stone now fixed in the wall of the Cathedral tower of Mexico. This basalt stone, which weighs 25 tons and has a diameter of 11 feet, is briefly described and figured by T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archaeology, 1914, pp. 73, 74; cf. Pl. VIII. fig. 1. See also the account by Alfredo Chavero in the Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico, and an excellent reproduction of the Calendar Stone in T. U. Brocklehurst's Mexico To-day, 1883, p. 186; also Zelia Nuttall's study of the "Mexican Calendar System," Tenth Internat. Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, 1894. "The regular rotation of market-days and the day of enforced rest every 20 days were the prominent and permanent features of the civil solar year" (ib.).