370 



DISCOVERY 



prctation is, perhaps, one of the reasons why they fail 

 to excite more general interest. But surely the 

 privilege of watching the gradual revelation of these 

 obscure glyphs is one on which our generation should 





Tablet of Maya writing from a temple at Palenque. 



place a higher value than it appears to think the 

 opportunity merits. 



The localities of Central America in which monu- 

 ments bearing the involved and fantastic characters 

 of this script are most generally found arc still in- 

 habited by people of that Maya stock who once em- 



ployed it. They embrace the remote peninsula of 

 Yucatan, the uplands of Guatemala, and the districts 

 of Tabasco, Chiapas, and even a portion of Honduras, 

 liut by far the greater number of inscriptions have 

 been met with in the southern part of these provinces, 

 where the older branch of the Maya civilisation ori- 

 ginally flourished. It is at such sites as Copan in 

 Honduras, Quirigua and Tikal in Guatemala, and 

 Piedras Negras and Palenque in Chiapas that impwrtant 

 texts are found, rather than in Yucatan proper, al- 

 though inscriptions of moment are not wanting at 

 U.xmal, Chichen Itza, and elsewhere in the northern 

 spheres of Maya influence. 



Just as the ancient writings of the Middle East arc 

 found inscribed on a variety of objects, so the Maya 

 script is not only painted on paper or skin or carved 

 on stone, but incised on wood, bone, shell, metal, 

 and modelled on pottery. The mediums of stone and 

 paper were the most popular among the Maya scribes, 

 and all others may be dismissed from our considera- 

 tion. The carven inscriptions usually occur upon the 

 sides of monoliths known as stele-shafts, which in 

 shape, if not in their wealth of ornamental detail, 

 recall the menhirs of Brittanj'. On altars, staircases, 

 and frequently on the walls of temples and palaces, 

 they are to be found nestling among the florid reliefs 

 typical of Maya architecture. But the writing proper 

 is confined to the few manuscripts or codices rescued 

 from the fnous attentions of the early Spanish eccle- 

 siastical authorities and now in European museums 

 or libraries. 



The shape of the glyphs or symbols as they occur 

 in the carven examples differs somewhat from that 

 employed in the written character, the former being 

 adapted to the restrictions of the sculptor's chisel, the 

 latter to the less limited technique of the scribe's brush. 

 But the basic likeness between the forms is plainly 

 apparent. At first sight the glyphs appear as a 

 number of small squares rounded at the corners, 

 representing human faces and other objects, highly 

 conventionalised by generations of artistic usage. 

 They have been described as " calculiform," or pebble- 

 shaped, from the fact that the contour which encloses 

 each of them resembles that of a small pebble. In 

 this they are contained much as the hieroglyphs which 

 make up the name of an Egyptian king are enclosed 

 in a " cartouche," or oval contour. They are arranged 

 in parallel columns, which are to be read two columns 

 at a time, beginning with the uppermost glyph in the 

 left-hand division. The reader must then work his 

 way from left to right and top to bottom, ending with 

 the lowest glyph in the second column. But should 

 the glyphs be disposed in a horizontal band, the order 

 of reading is from left to right, in pairs. 



The history of the prolonged endeavour to discover 



