Now, the question finally arises as to what may, strictly speaking, be considered the significance of these numbers, dates and differences.
In the first place, I would recall the fact that the dates of the monuments of Copan and Quirigua, which doubtless refer to present time, are in the neighborhood of 1,400,000. The high numbers of our Manuscript, so far as they are in question here, form first a group, which extends from about 1,200,000 to 1,280,000, and then there is a blank, and next a large group extending from about 1,350,000 to 1,480,000, then another blank and lastly a group extending from about 1,520,000 to 1,580,000. If we assume that our Manuscript belonged to about the same date as these inscriptions, then the three numbers discussed here would extend over a past period lying about 160-170 years back, when a new period of importance had begun probably dating from the immigration of the Aztecs into Mexico, which they placed in the first half of the 14th century (see "Weltall," Vol. 5. pp. 374-377). Now, however, the number 1,366,560 contains the statement that 3744 years ago (each year having 365 days) an event must have occurred, which can hardly be anything other (according to the belief of the Mayas) than the creation of mankind. Hence all the _historical_ dates of the Mayas were computed from this starting-point. But how did this event come to have the date IV Ahau 8 Cumhu?
In my opinion this date is to be regarded only as the result of the far more important date I Ahau 18 Kayab, lying 2200 days earlier. Day 17, Ahau, belongs, without doubt, to the chief of the gods, and as the first week day it must have been especially sacred. The prophecies of the Tonalamatl preferably begin with the Ahau and with the I. The series on the page under discussion, constructed with the difference 2920 as a basis, begins with I Ahau, and the three series on pages 46-50 also have the same day as the zero point of departure. I Ahau is therefore the starting-point of the astronomical computations as IV Ahau is of the historical.
Now, however, all the periods of 260 days end each time with I Ahau. Why is precisely this day chosen here, which is the 18th day of the month Kayab, therefore in the year 3 Kan, and lying 2200 days earlier than the historical date?