Moreover, there is encountered at the very outset in the study of these elements a condition which renders progress slow and results uncertain. Examples of glyph elision, showing elimination of all parts except essential element (here, the crossed bands). of a hundred or so of these simple elements, none of the inscriptions could conceal any longer from us the general tenor of its contents." Unfortunately, it must be admitted that but little advance has been made toward the solution of this problem, perhaps because later students have distrusted the highly fanciful results achieved by the earlier writers who "interpreted" these "simple elements."įig. 10) in this connection: "If we positively knew the meaning. The apparent multiplicity of these combinations leads at first to the conclusion that a great number of signs were employed in Maya writing, but closer study will show that, as compared with the composite characters or glyphs proper, the simple elements are few in number. The writer knows of no text in which the above order of reading is not followed.Ī brief examination of any Maya text, from either the inscriptions or the codices, reveals the presence of certain elements which occur repeatedly but in varying combinations. In reading glyphs in a horizontal band, the order is from left to right in pairs. Then the next two columns are read in the same order, and so on. In Maya inscriptions the glyphs are arranged in parallel columns, which are to be read two columns at a time, beginning with the uppermost glyph in the left-hand column, and then from left to right and top to bottom, ending with the lowest glyph in the second column. Disregarding this consideration as unessential, we may say that the glyphs in both the inscriptions and the codices belong to one and the same system of writing, and if it were possible to read either, the other could no longer withhold its meaning from us. This difference in outline, however, is only superficial in significance and involves no corresponding difference in meaning between otherwise identical glyphs it is due entirely to the mechanical dissimilarity of the two materials. Those in the codices, on the other hand, approximate more nearly in form rhomboids or even ovals (fig. Most of the glyphs in the inscriptions are square in outline except for rounded corners (fig. As an adjunct to architecture inscriptions occur on wall-slabs at Palenque, on lintels at Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras, on steps and stairways at Copan, and on piers and architraves at Holactun and these do not include the great number of smaller pieces, as inscribed jades and the like. The foregoing monuments, however, by no means exhaust the list of stone objects that bear hieroglyphs. Frequently associated with these stelæ are smaller monoliths known as "altars," which vary greatly in size, shape, and decoration, some bearing glyphs and others being without them. Slab-stelæ, on the other hand, are shorter and most of them bear inscriptions only on the reverse. Some of the shaft-stelæ attain a height of twenty-six feet (above ground) these are not unlike roughly squared obelisks, with human figures carved on the obverse and the reverse, and glyphs on the other faces. The stones bearing inscriptions are found in a variety of shapes, the commonest being the monolithic shafts or slabs known as stelæ. All of these, however, with the exception of the first and the last (the inscriptions on stone and the fiber-paper books or codices) just mentioned, occur so rarely that they may be dismissed from present consideration. Texts have been found carved on the wooden lintels of Tikal, molded in the stucco reliefs of Palenque, scratched on shells from Copan and Belize, etched on a bone from Wild Cane Key, British Honduras, engraved on metal from Chichen Itza, drawn on the plaster-covered walls of Kabah, Chichen Itza, and Uxmal, and painted in fiber-paper books. The materials upon which the Maya glyphs are presented are stone, wood, stucco, bone, shell, metal, plaster, pottery, and fiber-paper the first-mentioned, however, occurs more frequently than all of the others combined. Outlines of the glyphs: a, b, In the codices c, in the inscriptions.
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