CENTRAL AMERICAN HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING. 



Bv Cyrus Thomas. 



The Mayan tribes of Yucatan, Chiapas, Guatemala, and western 

 Honduras had reached at the time of the *■' discover}^" the highest stage 

 of native culture found in North America, except possibly in political 

 organization, in which the ancient Mexicans, or Aztecs, excelled. 

 This advance is shown by their architecture, as seen in the ruins of 

 stately stone structures found throug-hout the region indicated, by 

 their sculptures in stone and wood, by their complicated calendar 

 system, b}- their arithmetical computations, and, above all, by the 

 near approach they seem to have made to alphabetic writing, their 

 system falling apparentl}^ Imt a step behind that of the ancient 

 Eg3"ptians. They engraved their peculiar hieroglyphic characters on 

 stone tablets, on great sculptured monoliths, and on the walls and 

 lintels of their buildings, painted them on plastered surfaces and 

 on pottery, and wrote them in books. As most of these glyphs have 

 rounded outlines, early authors imagined they resembled somewhat a 

 section of a pebble, and the term ''calculiform characters" — from the 

 Latin calculus, "a pebble" — was for a time applied to them; but this 

 is no longer in use, the term "hieroglyph," or simpl}" "glyph," 

 having replaced it. Where inscribed on stone or wood (for they are 

 carved on both, but chiefly on the former) the}^ are made to stand out 

 in low relief, as may be seen in plate i; but occasionallv they were 

 scratched or incised on shells and pottery, in which cases the glyphs are 

 generally quite rude. 



Inscriptions composed of these peculiar hieroglyphs have been 

 found in the ruins of temples and of other structures in the States 

 of Chiapas and Yucatan, Mexico, and in Guatemala and w^estern 

 Honduras. They are found in ditl'erent situations, some of them on 

 stone slabs set in the inner side of the walls of the temples, one of 

 which, from Palenque, Chiapas, is among the collections of the Smith- 

 sonion Institution. A very extensive inscription is on the inside wall 

 of the structure at Palenque, named by Stephens the "Temple of 

 Inscriptions." At Copan, in western Honduras, and at Quirigua, in 

 eastern Guatemala, the more important ones are on the sides and 

 backs of the great stone statues which stood, and, in part, are yet 

 standing, in what the native priests considered sacred precincts. The 



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