·     Each of the five standard sources gives one or more variants, but the situation is very complex:

o No source gives all five variants.

o For each variant, some sources give only a mi or only a MIH reading, and some sources give both readings (but not consistently for all the variants which they do give).

o Some sources give alternative readings besides mi and MIH, like mihil, minan:

o It’s questionable whether there is any benefit in trying to analyse which source gives which combination of readings for which variant.

§ I think it’s simplest just to behave as if all variants can be either mi or MIH, and if that’s too broad, then some of those will never be encountered in reality.

§ The only exception is the “shell” variant found almost exclusively only in the codices (see below). That one only occurs as a coefficient in calendrical phrases (i.e. as a number), never as mi (to spell words).

For example, TOK gives only mi, but MIH is given in AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:37.40; or JM gives both mi/MI (but in his time, the -h of mih was not read); K&H gives MIH? and MINAN?, both with question marks; etc.

·     AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:41:20-42:12- talks about the god-head variants and how most of what he proceeds to say is pure speculation: The fascinating point Maya numbers is that they also have what we call “head variants”. And we actually don’t know why – we don’t know how the system came into being, but the first twelve numbers [“1” to “12”] have a god – some kind of supernatural being – associated with them. And as far as I know, nobody ever published an article explaining why it happens – trying to understand the symbolism [or] the significance. We don’t know some of the gods of those numbers – and even if we know some of them, it’s still not clear what happens. What you’re going to hear now is just pure speculation – I like to speculate about my numbers. But it’s kind of fascinating: it’s one of those things where you can pretty much say what you want because nobody else even thinks about it. It’s still such an open field, the symbolism of these characters.

·     AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:51:34-52:12: And then there’s a word that means “zero” – mih or mihil. And it is spelled with this four-petalled flower, sometimes with elaborate phonetic complements – this is just the hi-sign. And then there’s a shell-like thing held by a hand, that’s a syllable-mi or a MIH [unclear]. And there’s this little shell form. [It] occurs in the codices, but now we discovered some murals in Xultun – archaeologists discovered some murals at Xultun which actually used this character at the end of the Classic period. So we know it was probably in the manuscripts, but not so much in the inscriptions or the carved monuments.

·     PAL House C HS has two very different systems of glyph-block labelling:

o MHD: Four columns (A-B, C-D) and six rows (1-6) – sub-parts of very complex glyph-blocks are designated -a, -b, -c, -d (left to right, top to bottom).

o Polyukhovych:  Eight columns (A-B, C-D, E-F, G-H) and twelve rows (1-12) - sub-parts of very complex glyph-blocks get a simple glyph-block reference (but large simple glyph-blocks span rows and columns, in particular, rows do this).

·     Basic numbers (1 to 20):

o All the basic numbers 1 to 19 (but not 20) have head variants (in addition to the ‘bar-and-dot’ forms). Three of them have additional non-head logograms: “0”, “1”, “6”:

§ “0” has four additional non-head logograms [plus the head variant è 5 variants in total].

§ “1” has two additional non-head logograms [plus the head variant è 3 variants in total].

§ “6” has one additional non-head logograms [plus the head variant è 2 variants in total].

o “20” has no head variant, but has two non-head logograms [ è 2 variants in total]:

§ “Moon”.

§ “Human face”.

·     Variants of “0” (5):

o A. Anthropomorphic head with hand-jaw:

§ Top: Forehead ornament resembling HA’ or ba, but without the blades of grass at the bottom.

§ Right: Complex ear with long strands of hair.

§ Bottom:

·       Hand covering chin – thumb covering lips, forefinger points at ear, little finger points to back of head.

·       Hand (optionally) in a gesture slightly resembling “devil’s horns”, but with outstretched thumb.

PAL House C HS C5-C6 / B3a has a CHAPAAT headdress, but the distinguishing characteristic still remains the hand-jaw.

o B. Flower (note: not “the head of a bee” with the two long petals as “feelers”, as per reference lost):

§ Washer, surrounded by:

§ 1 roughly rectangular and 2 roughly square petals, each:

·       Rounded.

·       Bold outline.

·       Cross-hatched.

§ 2 long, thin “leaves” between the 3 petals, each optionally with a spine.

o C. Hand holding shell:

§ Right hand with fingers slightly or fully curled and pointing to the right, viewed from the back of the hand.

§ Hand grasps a “yi”.

§ Optionally has a “li” or “AK’AB”-like element at the bottom.

o D. Plain hand:

§ Open right hand, viewed from the back of the hand.

§ Fingers and thumb outstretched and pointing upwards.

§ Optional fingernails.

§ 2 touching dots with protector in bottom right corner (an “AK’AB”?).

o E. Shell (mostly Codex form):

§ Rather abstract and difficult to describe – see example.

·     MIH can also be a verb meaning “to make content”, “to appease” – see Tokovinine-PaIiCMN.p39.pdfp48.para3.