The contents of the following pages are of very little value, unless the student can compare them with an edition of the manuscript. My first edition was published in 1880 at Leipsic and the second at Dresden in 1892. The edition in Lord Kingsborough's "Mexican Antiquities" (in Volume III of that work, London, 1831) is still of practical use.
And since in this work I must premise a knowledge of the elements of the subject, I would recommend, as additional aids to the comprehension of the following pages, my "Erläuterungen zur Mayahandschrift der Königlichen öffentlichen Bibliothek zu Dresden" (Dresden, 1886), and also Brinton, "A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics" (in the publications of the University of Pennsylvania. Series in Philology, Literature and Archaeology, Vol. III). I would also mention the very valuable work by Paul Schellhas, "Die Göttergestalten der Mayahandschriften" (Dresden, 1897), which I follow in the designation of the various gods by letters of the alphabet.
It need hardly be pointed out, that the numerous pioneer articles by Edward Seler offer abundant instruction to the student in this field as well as in that of Aztec remains.
I wish to express heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Zelia Nuttall and Mr. Charles P. Bowditch, who have aided my work in various ways and have thus rendered possible the publication of this book.
As the first page is almost entirely effaced by abrasion, we know very little of its contents. Like the second, however, it was doubtless divided into four parts. The two pages have this also in common, that, for lack of space, their contents are not expressed in full, but abbreviated as much as possible.
The top section (a) of page 1 may have been filled with a sort of frontispiece, perhaps a face with a few signs around it.
The three lower sections (b, e, d,) with the three lower of the second page doubtless formed a whole. Each of these sections contained a normal Tonalamatl of the commonest kind, which was introduced on the left by five day-signs having a difference of 12 and was thus divided into five sections of 52 days each. In sections b and d, at least, these periods seem to be divided into equal halves of 26 days each. In d alone we recognize the initial week day, VII, of the Tonalamatl. In each of the three divisions there were two figures of gods, but we can recognize only the first of these in section d as the god D.