DISCOVERY 



371 



the hidden meaning of these characters so obstinately 

 dumb, although one of continuous and patient effort, 

 is not devoid of romantic quality, and has, indeed, 

 furnished more than one noveUst with material for a 

 tale of absorbing interest. In 1565 Landa, Bishop of 

 Chiapas, who destroyed a large number of manuscripts 

 on the plea that they were " the devil's picture-books," 



ing lo Mural Inscriptions. This, the most fantastic of 

 the attempts to probe the mj'stery of the Maya symbols, 

 compared and even identified them with those of 

 Egypt, and did incalculable mischief in spreading the 

 delusion that they had at last been deciphered, and 

 were to be regarded as the prototypes of the Egyptian 

 hieroglyphs. Most of Le Plongeon's " characters " 



The sign which means " sua.' 



The sj-mbol for " moon.' 



"The spring equinox." 



" Feather," the sign of the plarll. 



seems to have been smitten with a late compunction 

 for his short-sighted policy, and addressed himself to 

 the task of collecting all available information regarding 

 the Maya writing from the native scribes who still 

 practised it. He brought together a number of 

 characters representing twenty-seven sounds, and the 

 essay in which he preserved these was published by 

 the enthusiastic but visionary Abbe Brasseur de 

 Bourbourg at Paris in 1864, when French interest in 

 Mexico was at its height. Landa's " alphabet " was 

 at once hailed by Americanists as the key which would 

 unlock the secrets of the Maya writing, the " Rosetta 

 Stone " of America. But it was soon found that all 

 attempts to decipher the glyphs by its agency were 

 only partially successful, and it has been conjectured 

 that the Indian scribes, who looked upon the bishop 

 as the ruthless destroj'cr of their ancient records, 

 purposely misled him. At the same time most of the 

 names and symbols for the days and months as fur- 

 nished bj' him are known to be correct, as is found 

 by a comparison of them with the glyphs appearing in 

 certain native books known as the Books of Chilan 

 Balam, where they are shown with their phonetic 

 equivalents in European letters. 



are cither ornamental details or bizarre inventions, 

 unrepresented among the Maya glyphs. 



The first student to throw any light on the manner 

 in which the quest should be conducted if final success 

 were to be hoped for was Professor Ernst Forstemann, 

 of Dresden, who, about 1880, showed that the native 

 records and inscriptions were chiefly concerned with 

 the fi.xation of calendric festivals and the dating of 

 monuments. He discovered and elucidated the ela- 

 borate and ingenious system of numeration in use 

 among the peoples of ancient Central America, and 

 showed how it was utilised to record astronomical and 

 chronological facts. In short, his pioneer work made 

 possible all subsequent progress in deciphering the 

 texts. Curiously enough, an American student of the 

 subject, Mr. J. T. Goodman, of Alameda, California, 

 working independently, arrived at conclusions similar 

 to those reached by Forstemann. Since that time the 

 work has been carried on by the late Professor D. G. 

 Brinton, of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor 

 Eduard Seler, of BerUn, Mr. S. G. Morlcy, and, notably, 

 by Mr. C. P. Bowditch, of Boston, who, by addressing 

 himself to the task of placing the whole study on a 

 systematic basis, has made it possible to survey the 



Sacrificial victim. 



In 1876 the French Americanist, Leon de Rosny, 

 published an alphabet of twenty-nine letters with 

 numerous variants. But neither this, nor the attempt 

 of another French savant, De Charencey, can be taken 

 seriously. Ten years later Dr. Augustus Le Plongeon 

 published An Ancient Mayan Hieratic Alphabet accord- 



entire field of past endeavour and has rendered further 

 progress practicable. 



Judging from the complete state of development at 

 which the system had arrived at the date of the 

 discovery of Central .Vmerica by the Spaniards, there 

 is every reason to refer its origin to a past of consider- 



