THE MAYA GLYPHS 



By E. Forstemann 



FIKST PAPER « 



It is well for the traveler occasionally to cast a backward glance 

 over the road upon which he is journeying, and the same holds good 

 of the path along which science is advancing. From the vantage 

 ground of that which has already been attained we can see more 

 clearly what should be the next step and what is still to be attained. 

 The wonderful hieroglyphs which occur on the stone monuments and 

 in the ancient manuscripts of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Yucatan, 

 Avhich but a few decades ago were a perfect enigma, are to-day one 

 after another becoming intelligible and call all the more for such a 

 retrospective view because in them pre-Columbian America attained 

 its highest state of culture. 



The birth year of the decipherment of these glyphs was 1863. 

 In that year the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg discovered at Madrid 

 the manuscript of the Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan by Diego de 

 Landa (bishop of Merida in Yucatan from 1573 to 1579), which he 

 published in 1864. In this manuscript were found the signs of the 

 numerals from 1 to 19, the twenty day signs of the 20-day period, and 

 the eighteen signs of the periods of this kind which make up the year. 

 All these signs, apart from numerous variants, were actually met'with 

 again on the inscriptions and in the manuscripts, so that by the dis- 

 covery of this manuscript the corner stone was laid, and building 

 could proceed. I do not wish further to discuss these glyphs here 

 nor to copy them since the}^ are the undisputed possession of science 

 and have been reproduced in many places, for example, in my 

 Erlauterungen, published in 1886. No one will misconstrue my 

 silence with regard to the so-called alphabet of Diego de Landa. 



The next addition to this material was made in 1876 by Leon de 

 Rosny in his Essai sur le dechiffrement de Tecriture hieratique de 

 I'Amerique centrale, in which we find interpreted the well-known 

 signs which unquestionably denote the four cardinal points. This dis- 

 covery was made simultaneously in America by Cyrus Thomas. 



In two of these four signs and in one of the eighteen signs of the 20- 

 day periods was found the symbol for the sun, as if it were a matter of 



"Die Mayahleroglyphen, Globus, 1894, v. 60, n. 5, pp. 78-80. 



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