Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/40

xxxiv

The study of the Maya hieroglyphic system is still in its infancy. It is only two years since an unquestionably faithful reproduction of the Dresden Codex supplied a needed standard of comparison for the Codex Troano. Some knowledge of the Maya language, if not indispensable, is certainly desirable in such an undertaking, particularly if the writing is in any degree phonetic. But it was not till 1877 that any printed dictionary of that tongue could be had. The publication of the Diccionario de la Lengua Maya of Don Juan Pio Perez was completed in that year, and, though still leaving much to be desired, especially in reference to the ancient forms and meanings of words, it is a creditable monument of industry.

When the Abbé Brasseur edited the Codex Troano he also attempted an explanation of its contents. He went so far as to give an interlinear version of some pages, and wonderful work he made of it! But I am relieved of expressing an opinion as to his success by his own statement in a later work, that he had, by mistake, commenced at the end of the Codex instead of its beginning; that he had read the lines from right to left, when he should have read them from left to right; and that his translations were not intended for more than mere experiments.

The attempt at a translation of the Dresden Codex by Mr. William Bollaert, published in the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, 1870, may be passed over for the same reason. He also "read from the bottom upwards, and from right to left," and his renderings were altogether fanciful.

The first who addressed himself to an investigation of the Maya hieroglyphics with anything like a scientific method was M. Hyacinthe de Charencey, of France. I append, in a note, a list of his essays on this subject, with their dates, so far as I know them. When they first appeared