A fairly good case has now been argued for hura in Ca5-14 marking spring equinox:
But we can do better. Metoro said kua haga te mea ke at Ca5-14, which may be translated as 'the harbour (haga) has been reached (kua haga) for mea ke'. The term mea ke probably refers to winter solstice which the glyph type mea ke seems to illustrate:
There are 392 glyphs on side a and if we think the new year should begin with Ca2-1, then the year will be 365 + a fraction of a day (a not completely drawn glyph):
But there are several alternative ways to count, e.g. to begin from glyph number 30:
13 * 29.5 = 383.5 and possibly this explains the strange picture in *Ca14-21. The oblique bottom end of henua in *Ca14-24 is oppositely oriented compared to the oblique bottom end in Ca5-16. The meaning of this obliquity sign seems to be to indicate the direction of change in light (diminishing respectively increasing).
121 = 11 * 11 and 387 = 9 * 43. A confirmation that we have counted in a correct way (i.e. from Ca5-16) is given by 38 * 7 = 266. This number hardly means a summer which stretches for 266 days, instead it is presumably to be read as a sign, possibly indicating that '26' (the number connected with the Sun King) is ruling for 6 months. If the number of nights in a month is counted as 20 according to Moon, then the number of days in a month could be counted as 26 according to Sun. |