I haven't been following this discussion too closely (for various
reasons), so I apologize if someone has already mentioned this, but:
Is it possible that the use of Mayan numerals on houses in southern
Mexico is comparable to the use of Roman numerals for chapter numbers,
copyright dates in movies, page numbers in book prefaces, etc. in North
America and Europe?
We use Roman numerals in these contexts partly for their charm, for our
own amusement more than that of outsiders, and partly as a matter of
tradition. (I do have Ifrah's book, and probably should have consulted
it before going off on this rant, but oh well...) We *never* try to
perform arithmetic with them; to do so would be missing the point. It's
not hard for me to imagine that the Mayan numerals carry a similar
appeal for southern Mexican homeowners.