CENTRAL AMERICAN HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING. 721 



The steps which have been made in decipherment have made it 

 evident that the Maj^an priests had an understood era or a well-under- 

 stood point of departure in their time counts. They also indicate 

 that the inscriptions at Copan and Quirio-ua were carved in substan- 

 tially the same period, the range, judging by the terminal dates of 

 the initial series, being comprised in two hundred j^ears. But the 

 attempts to connect the dates in the Mayan inscriptions and codices 

 with dates in the Gregorian calendar have failed, though greater suc- 

 cess has attended the efforts in this direction with the Aztec count. 

 Another fact made prominent by the study of these glyphs is the 

 uniformity in the system, art, and culture, along the lines indicated, 

 in Chiapas, Guatemala, western Honduras, and with slight exceptions 

 in Yucatan. The collection of hieroglyphs from the inscriptions of the 

 latter section are not sufficient to determine whether they follow the 

 Troano and Cortesian codices or the system of the inscriptions of 

 Chiapas and Guatemala. 



Th(> study of the inscriptions and codices has made it evident that 

 no adjustment between the Maya year and the solar year was made in 

 any way that appears in the record or interfered with the calendar 

 count. Although the efforts at interpretation have succeeded in few 

 if any instances in tracing the connection throughout long inscrip- 

 tions, they have made it evident that there is connection, or, in other 

 words, that these inscriptions (with possible exceptions) are continu- 

 ous records from the initial gl3q3h to the end, though it may consist of 

 little else than number series and time counts. Both inscriptions and 

 codices evidently relate very largely to ceremonies and priestly duties, 

 more particularly the latter. 



Another result of the stud}' of the hieroglyphs is the clear distinc- 

 tion it has estal)lished between the Maya and the Aztec symbolic 

 writings. 



The Maya writing has been studied to a greater or less extent by 

 Leon de Rosn}^, Hyacinth de Charencey, and Brasseur de Bourbourg, 

 of France; P. Schellhas, E. Forstemann, and Eduard Seler, of Ger- 

 many; A. P. Maudsla}^, of Engljind; Charles Ran, Edward Holden, 

 D. G. Brinton, J. T. (joodman, Marshall H. Saville, Cyrus Thomas, 

 G. B. Gordon, and C. P. Bowditch, in the United States. 



