52 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
All drawings of inscriptions in this memoir were made by the writer, 
in the great majority of cases directly from the originals, but two or three 
being drawn from casts or photographs in the Peabody Museum. 
How far the writer has succeeded in eliminating his personal equation 
in these drawings is difficult to say, although every glyph was measured 
and drawn to scale, 7. ¢., not sketched free-hand. ‘This point has already 
received some attention in connection with the work of Miss Hunter and 
Mrs. Tretheway, the delineators of the Maudslay and Bowditch publications, 
respectively, and a closing word may be added here. 
In such complex compositions as the Maya glyphs, the element of 
selection, the quality of line employed, the method of rendering the depth 
of the relief, in some cases as much as 15 cm., and of showing the effaced 
portions, to say nothing of the debatable ground of restoring partially effaced 
glyphs, all make for considerable individual variation, even in copies of 
the same original. Moreover, the texts themselves differ greatly one from 
another, due in part to the different periods from which they date, and in 
part to the varying skill of the sculptors by whom they were severally exe- 
cuted. In view of all these complicating factors, therefore, it is not sur- 
prising to find slight dissimilarities in different representations of the same 
glyph. Such differences, however, are usually unimportant. They do not 
interfere with the accurate representation of the details upon which the 
glyphs depend for their meanings; and they are of moment only when it 
becomes necessary to rely upon the stylistic criteria for dating. In such 
cases, however, it is imperative to have the spirit of the original preserved 
so far as possible (character of line, detail of decoration, and depth of relief), 
for it is only by means of such secondary criteria that even approximate 
dating can then be attempted. 
In closing this chapter it should be pointed out that all direct quotations 
from French, German, Spanish, and Mayan authorities, which are especially 
numerous in the appendices, have been translated into English in order 
to make them more serviceable to the general reader. In all such cases, how- 
ever, footnotes indicate where the original passages may be consulted. 
