STUDIES IN CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING. 
By EDWARD S. HOLDEN. 
IE, 
Since 1876 I have been familiar with the works of Mr. JOHN L. STE- 
PHENS on the antiquities of Yucatan, and from time to time I have read 
works on kindred subjects with ever increasing interest and curiosity in 
regard to the meaning of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the stones and 
tablets of Copan, Palenque, and other ruins of Central America. In 
August, 1880, I determined to see how far the principles which are suc- 
cessful when applied to ordinary cipher-writing would carry one in the 
inscriptions of Yucatan. The difference between an ordinary cipher- 
message and these inscriptions is not so marked as might at first sight 
appear. The underlying principles of deciphering are quite the same 
in the two cases. 
The chief difficulty in the Yucatec inscriptions is our lack of any defi- 
nite knowledge of the nature of the records of the aborigines. The pa- 
tient researches of our archeologists have recovered but very little of 
their manners and habits, and one has constantly to avoid the tempting 
suggestions of an imagination which has been formed by modern influ- 
ences, and to endeavor to keep free from every suggestion not inherent 
in the stones themselves. I say the stones, for I have only used the 
Maya manuscripts incidentally. They do not possess, to me, the same 
interest, and I think it may certainly be said that all of them are younger 
than the Palenque tablets, and far younger than the inscriptions at 
Copan. 
I therefore determined to apply the ordinary principles of deciphering, 
without any bias, to the Yucatec inscriptions, and to go as far as I could 
certainly. Arrived at the point where demonstration ceased, it would 
be my duty to stop. For, while even the conjectures of a mind per- 
fectly trained in archzologic research are valuable and may subse- 
quently prove to be quite right, my lack of familiarity with historical 
works forced me to keep within narrow and safe limits. 
My programme at beginning was, jirst, to see if the inscriptions at 
Copan and Palenque were written in the same tongue. When I say “to 
see,” I mean to definitely prove the fact, and so in other cases ; second, 
to see how the tablets were to be read. That is, in horizontal lines, are 
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