INTRODUCTION. 



BY DANIEL G. BRINTON, M. D. 



THE GRAPHIC SySTP:M AND ANCIENT RECORDS OF THE 



MAYAS. 



1.— INTRODUCTORY. 



One of the ablest of living ethnologists has classified the means of 

 recording knowledge under two general headings — Thought-writing and 

 Sound-writing.^ The former is again divided into two forms, the first and 

 earliest of which is by pictures, the second by picture-writing. 



The superiority of picture-writing over the mere depicting of an occur- 

 rence is that it analyzes the thought and expresses separately its component 

 pai'ts, whereas the picture presents it as a whole. The re])resentations 

 familiar among the North American Indians are usually mere pictures, wliile 

 most of the records of the Aztec communities are in picture-writing. 



The genealogical development of Sound-writing begins by the substi- 

 tution of the sign of one idea for that of another whose sound is nearly or 

 quite the same. Such was the early graphic system of Egypt, and such 

 substantially to-day is that of the Chinese. Above this stands s^dlabic 

 writing, as that of the Japanese, and the semi-syllabic signs of the old 

 Semitic alphabet; while, as the perfected result of these various attempts, 

 we reach at last the invention of a true alphabet, in which a definite figure 

 corresponds to a definite elementary sound. 



It is a primary question in American archaeology, How far did the most 



1 Dr. Friedricli Miiller, Grundriss der Spraclnoisaenacliaft, Baud i, pp. 151-150. 

 II M T XVII 



