KCHELLHAsl REPRESENTATION ON MANUSCRIPTS AND I?JSCRIPTIONS 599 



has a invthologic calendric meaning {(t. figure 115, kin, "" the sun ■'; h, 

 the same; r, the waning moon; r/, tlie increasing moon; e, the name 

 sign of the deity represented, simihir to /, from the Dresden manu- 

 script, also the sign for a calendar divinity). 



Besides this remarkable inscription, we also find in the Yucatan 

 collection of the Berlin Museum of Ethnolog}^ two pottery vessels 

 with glyphic characters, one in round, the other in square forms, 

 just as in the different manuscripts. Almost all the characters on 

 these vessels may be indentified with characters in the manuscripts; 

 but this unfortunately does not determine their meaning. 



While the written remains leave no room to doubt that they are all 

 from one original source, a comparison of the pictorial representations 

 in the manuscripts Avith those on the reliefs and on the objects com- 

 posing the Yucatan collection shows such startling differences that 

 any attempt to explain them meets with the greatest difficulties, and a 

 common origin is scarcely to be assumed, unless, indeed, the existing 

 remains belong to wndely differing periods of time. 



I I :|9 



t^ 



abed e f g 



Fig. 115. Glyphs from the Dresden codex. 



The representations of the human form with its dress, ornaments, 

 weapons, etc., are especially well adapted to serve as objects for 

 comparison. 



KEPRESENTATIONS ON MANUSCRIPTS AND INSCRIP- 

 TIONS 



The Human Form 



The physical characteristics of the persons represented are in gen- 

 eral ahvays the same. We everywhere meet with the artificially 

 deformed skull (compare Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, 

 chapter P>0), the large hooked nose, and the protruding lips, all of 

 which are evidently racial peculiarities of the peoples of the Maya 

 region. So, too, that " los indios de Yucatan son bien dispuestos y 

 altos" (Landa, chapter 20) is repeatedly confirmed by figures on the 

 reliefs and by the clav images in the Yucatan collection. A beard, 

 which, it is well known, the jNIayas lacked, occur;^ in very rare in- 

 stances and of scanty growth in the Dresden mamiscript (for instance, 

 on pages 7 above, 11 in the middle, and 27) aud always in the case of 

 a particular deity, the god D. It also occurs once in the Troano 

 codex, on page 24 above. A figure with complete moustache and chin 

 beard, of the form worn by the Spaniards at the time of the conquest, 

 occurs in the Yucatan collection; nothing similar appears either on 



