Up to the present time more efforts have been made to interpret the codices than the carved inscriptions. It seems to be generally admitted that the former bear a hieratic character and deal for the most part with religious rites and festivals and the fixing of the times and seasons of their occurrence; but whether under a clothing of myth and fable, ceremonial observance, or cryptic puzzle, the probable object of these writings was the establishment with something like accuracy of the position of the solar year, a knowledge of which, from our very familiarity with it, we are wont to overlook as one of the first necessities of civilization. Both codices and carved inscriptions are thickly studded with numerals and signs for periods of time, and it is in dealing with these time-computations and the arrangement of the calendar that students of Maya writings have up to the present met with their chief success. It seems doubtful if more than a mere trace of phoneticism has as yet been established, and more than doubtful if the inscriptions when fully deciphered will yield us much direct information of a historical nature.
The principal and earliest authority for the divisions of time and the signs by which they were represented is a document preserved in the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, believed to have been written in 1566 by Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan. The signs for the days and months given by Landa, although carelessly drawn, have proved of inestimable value, and a facsimile of them is here given:—
MONTH SIGNS.
DAY SIGNS.
An attempt was also made by Landa to construct an alphabet and to give a short example of phonetic writing; but in this he was not successful, for whatever phonetic value the glyphs may possess was probably of a syllabic and not of an alphabetic character, and Landa’s alphabet has proved to be to students almost as great a puzzle as the hieroglyphics themselves.
It may, however, be taken as clearly established:—
1. That the Mayas wrote their numerals from 1 to 19 in bars and dots, thus:
