An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 57
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE MAYA HIEROGLYPHS
BY SYLVANUS GRISWOLD MORLEY

WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1915

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D. C., January 7, 1914.
Sir: I have the honor to submit the accompanying manuscript of a memoir bearing the title An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs, by Sylvanus Griswold Morley, and to recommend its publication as a bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
The hieroglyphic writing developed by the Maya of Central America and southern Mexico was probably the foremost intellectual achievement of pre-Columbian times in the New World, and as such it deserves equal attention with other graphic systems of antiquity.
The earliest inscriptions now extant probably date from about the beginning of the Christian era, but such is the complexity of the glyphs and subject matter even at this early period, that in order to estimate the age of the system it is necessary to postulate a far greater antiquity for its origin. Indeed all that can be accepted safely in this direction is that many centuries must have elapsed before the Maya hieroglyphic writing could have been developed to the highly complex stage where we first encounter it.
The first student to make any progress in deciphering the Maya inscriptions was Prof. Ernst Förstemann, of the Royal Library at Dresden. About 1880 Professor Förstemann published a facsimile reproduction of the Dresden codex, and for the next twenty years devoted the greater part of his time to the elucidation of this manuscript. He it was who first discovered and worked out the ingenious vigesimal system of numeration used by the Maya, and who first pointed out how this system was utilized to record astronomical and chronological facts. In short, his pioneer work made possible all subsequent progress in deciphering Maya texts.