NOLDEN.] THE MAYA HIEROGLYPHS 225 
a rigid test of the theory. After looking through the Palenque series, 
and finding no similar figure and sign, I examined the Copan series, and 
in Plate IV, our Fig. 50, I found the same signs exactly; 7. e., the knot 
and the two chiffres. 
At first sight there is only the most general resemblance between the 
personages represented in the two plates; as STEPHENS says in his orig- 
inal account of them, they are “‘in many respects similar.” If he had 
known them to be the same, he would not have wasted his time in drawing 
them. The scale of the two drawings and of the two statues is different ; 
but the two personages are the same identically. Figure for figure, or- 
nament for ornament, they correspond. It is unnecessary to give the 
minute comparison here in words. It can be made by any one from the 
two plates herewith. Take any part of Plate I, find the corresponding 
part of Plate IV, and whether it is human feature or sculptured orna- 
ment the two will be found to be the same. 
Take the middle face depending from the belt in each plate. The 
earrings are the same; the ornament below the chin, the knot above 
the head, the complicated beadwork on each side of this face, all are 
the same. The bracelets of the right arms of the main figures have each 
the forked serpent tongue, and the left-arm bracelets are ornamented 
alike. The crosses with beads almost inclosed in the right hands are 
alike ; the elliptic ornaments above each wrist, the knots and chiffres over 
the serpent masks which surmount the faces, all are the same. In the 
steel plates given by STEPHENS there are even more coindences to be 
seen than in the excellent wood-cuts here given, which have been copied 
from them. 
Here, then, is an important fact. The theory that the chiffre over the 
forehead is characteristic, though it is not definitively proved, receives 
strong confirmation. The parts which have been lost by the effects of 
time on one statue can be supplied from the other. Better than all, we 
gain a test of the minuteness with which the sculptors worked, and an 
idea of how close the adherence to a type was required to be. Granting 
once that the two personages are the same (a fact about which I con- 
ceive there can beno possible doubt, since the chances in favor are lit- 
terally thousands to one), we learn what license was allowed, and what 
synonyms in stone might be employed. Thus, the ornament suspended 
from the neck in Plate IV is clearly a tiger’s skull. That from the neck 
of Plate I has been shown to be the derived form of a skull by Dr. 
HARRISON ALLEN,* and we now know that this common form relates 
not to the human skull, as Dr. ALLEN has supposed, but to that of the 
tiger. We shall find this figure often repeated, and the identification is 
of importance. This is a case in regard to synonyms. The kind of 
symbolism so ably treated by Dr. ALLEN is well exemplified in the con- 
ventional sign for the crotalus jaw at the mouth of the mask over the 
head of each figure. This is again found on the body of the suake in 
*The Life Form in Art, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., vol. xv, 1873, p. 325. 
15 AE 
