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254 CHAPTER XXVI.

THE HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS.

left to the last the subject of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. For those of my readers who have not previously paid any attention to the subject it is necessary to begin at the beginning and to say that there is a very considerable difference between the Mexican picture-writing and the Maya hieroglyphics, although not so very long ago they were all classed under the same head and called Mexican. The Maya writing may again be divided into two classes—the Inscriptions carved in stone or moulded in stucco, and the Codices or Manuscripts. Of these Codices there are four only known to students preserved in the museums and libraries of Paris, Dresden, and Madrid, and all four are in a more or less damaged condition. Between the glyphs of the carved inscriptions and the codices it may be stated roughly that there is not more difference than might naturally be looked for between a carved and written script.

Up to the present time more efforts have been made to interpret the codices than the carved inscriptions. It seems to be generally admitted that the former bear a hieratic character and deal for the most part with religious rites and festivals and the fixing of the times and seasons of their occurrence; but whether under a clothing of myth and fable, ceremonial observance, or cryptic puzzle, the probable object of these writings was the establishment with something like accuracy of the position of the solar year, a knowledge of which, from our very familiarity with it, we are wont to overlook as one of the first necessities of civilization. Both codices and carved inscriptions are thickly studded with numerals and signs for periods of time, and it is in dealing with these time-computations and the arrangement of the calendar that students of Maya writings have up to the present met with their chief success. It seems doubtful if more than a mere trace of phoneticism has as yet been established, and more than doubtful if the inscriptions when fully deciphered will yield us much direct information of a historical nature.

The principal and earliest authority for the divisions of time and the signs by which they were represented is a document preserved in the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, believed to have been written in 1566 by Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan. The signs for the days and months given by Landa, although carelessly drawn, have proved of inestimable value, and a facsimile of them is here given:—