Chapter II: Materials for the Present Investigation

My examination of the works of Mr. J. L. STEPHENS has convinced me that in every respect his is the most trustworthy work on the _hieroglyphs_ of Central America. The intrinsic evidence to this effect is very strong, but when I first became familiar with the works of WALDECK I found so many points of difference that my faith was for a time shaken, and I came to the conclusion that while the existing representations might suffice for the study of the general forms of statues, tablets, and buildings, yet they were not sufficiently accurate in detail to serve as a basis for the deciphering I had in mind. I am happy to bear witness, however, that STEPHENS'S work is undoubtedly amply adequate to the purpose, and this fact I have laboriously verified by a comparison of it with various representations, as those of DESAIX and others, and also with a few photographs. The drawings of WALDECK are very beautiful and artistic, but either the artist himself or his lithographers have taken singular liberties in the published designs. STEPHENS'S work is not only accurate, but it contains sufficient material for my purpose (over 1,500 separate hieroglyphs), and, therefore, I have based my study exclusively upon his earliest work, "_Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_," 2 vols., 8vo. New York, 1842 (twelfth edition). I have incidentally consulted the works on the subject contained in the Library of Congress, particularly those of BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, KINGSBOROUGH, WALDECK, and others, but, as I have said, the two volumes above named contain all the the[TN-2] material I have been able to utilize, and much more which is still under examination.

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One fact which makes the examination of the Central American antiquities easier than it otherwise would be, has not, I think, been sufficiently dwelt upon by former writers. This is the remarkable faithfulness of the artists and sculptors of these statues and inscriptions to a standard. Thus, at Copan, wherever the same kind of hieroglyph is to be represented, it will be found that the human face or other object employed is almost identically the same in expression and character, wherever it is found. The same characters at different parts of a tablet do not differ more than the same letters of the alphabet in two fonts of type.

At Palenque the _type_ (font) changes, but the adherence to this is equally or almost equally rigid. It is to be presumed that in this latter case, where work was done both in stone and stucco, the nature of the material affected the portraiture more or less.

The stone statues at Copan, for example, could not all have been done by the same artist, nor at the same time. I have elsewhere shown that two of these statues are absolutely identical. How was this accomplished? Was one stone taken to the foot of the other and cut by it as a pattern? This is unlikely, especially as in the case mentioned the _scale_ of the two statues is quite different. I think it far more likely that each was cut from a drawing, or series of drawings, which must have been preserved by priestly authority. The work at any one place must have required many years, and could not have been done by a single man; nor is it probable that it was all done in one generation. Separate hieroglyphs must have been preserved in the same way. It is this rigid adherence to a type, and the banishment of artistic fancy, which will allow of progress in the deciphering of the inscriptions or the comparison of the statues. Line after line, ornament after ornament, is repeated with utter fidelity. The reason of this is not far to seek. This, however, is not the place to explain it, but rather to take advantage of the fact itself. We may fairly say that were it not so, and with our present data, all advances would be tenfold more difficult.