HISTORY OF DECIPHERMENT OF MAYA HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING. 31 
1885 ;! while Goodman, on the other hand, did not announce his results until 
1895, though his preface states that he had been at work on the inscriptions 
for 12 years prior to that date.? Perhaps the fairest solution is to recognize 
the priority of Férstemann in the field of the manuscripts and that of Good- 
man in the field of the monuments. Goodman’s preeminence in the field of 
the inscriptions, moreover, is beyond question. In addition to working out 
the Maya calendar system as used therein, he was the first to make known 
the existence of the head-variant numerals, the so-called Maya Arabic 
notation, and to identify their different values; and finally he devised his 
justly famous chronological tables, the logarithmic short-cuts of Maya 
arithmetic.’ 
As early as 1890 Maudslay had realized the importance of the first seven 
glyphs in each text, and had given them the name Initial Series, by which 
they have since been known.’ In fact, in one of the earliest plates of the 
section on archeology of the Biologia Centrali-Americana, he figured nine 
of these Initial Series together, an arrangement which clearly brought out 
their similarity.® 
Because it made accessible, for the first time, accurate copies of the 
originals, the publication of Maudslay’s work gave tremendous impetus to 
the study of the Maya inscriptions. Goodman testifies in this connection 
that it alone made possible his results; and other students were not slow 
to devote themselves to this problem, investigating not only Goodman’s 
conclusions, but also the drawings upon which they were based. Goodman’s 
report appeared in 1897, and two years later Professor Eduard Seler, o 
Berlin, published a long discussion of the Copan, Quirigua, and Palenque 
texts, based upon Maudslay’s reproductions.’ This contains little new 
material, however, Goodman having covered the ground rather completely. 
Simultaneously with the publication of Seler’s studies, Cyrus Thomas, 
of the Bureau of American Ethnology, published an extended commentary 
on Goodman’s work.’ This is a critical examination of the latter’s con- 
clusions, with which it agrees in the main. Some new points are brought 
out, but in general Goodman’s theories are sustained. The most valuable 



1“Tt was a source of special satisfaction to me that in April 1885 I was able to determine the sign for zero 
and soon afterward to discover the way in which the Mayas expressed the higher numbers, so that they can now be 
read from zero up to millions. Upon this discovery is based the largest part of my later researches.” (Férstemann, 
1894, p. 78.) And again: “In the year 1885 the reading of all Maya numbers up to millions was found here [in the 
Dresden Codex], 1887, the origin of the historical Maya reckoning was found, and also the form of the calendar date 
composed of two numbers and two hieroglyphs was recognized [7.¢., 4 Ahau 8 Cumhul],” (Férstemann, 19024, 
p. 150.) 
2Goodman, 1897, p. iii. Goodman’s results were published as the Appendix to the section on archeology, of 
the Biologia Centrali-Americana, in 1897. 
3For a brief review of the scientific and literary achievements of Goodman, see Morley, 1919a, pp. 441-445. 
4Maudslay, 1889-1902, vol. 1 of text, p. 40. 
5]bid., vol. 1, plate 31; also in vol. 11, plate 65, and vol. rv, plate 92. 
6Seler 1899, pp. 670-738, and 1900, pp. 188-227. These were published in the Verhandlungen der Berliner 
anthropologischen Gesellschaft for November 18, 1899, and for March 17, 1900, and later in Seler’s collected works 
(1902-1908, vol. 1, pp. 712-836). There is an unpublished English translation of these articles in the Peabody 
Museum by Bowditch, who has had practically all of Seler’s works translated. 
7Thomas, 1900, pp. 693-819; also 1904, pp. 197-305. 
