Fig. 1.—Landa’s Alphabet; after a photograph from the original manuscript.
Another student who devoted several years to an attempt to reduce the hieroglyphs to an alphabetic form was the late Dr. Hilborne T. Cresson. His theory was that the glyphs stood for the names of pictures worn down to a single phonetic element, alphabetic or syllabic. This element he conceived was consonantal, to be read with any vowel, either prefixed or suffixed; and the consonant was permutable with any of its class, as a lingual, palatal, etc. On this basis he submitted, shortly before his death in 1894, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science several translations from the Codex Troano. Previous to this, in 1892, he had announced his method in the journal “Science,” and claimed that he had worked it out ten years before.[[11]]
An alphabet of twenty-seven characters, with variants, which the author considered in every way complete, was published in 1888, by F. A. de la Rochefoucauld.[[12]] By means of it he offered a volume of interlinear translations from the inscriptions and codices! They are in the highest degree fanciful, and can have little interest other than as a warning against the intellectual aberrations to which students of these ancient mysteries seem peculiarly prone.
In 1892 Professor Cyrus Thomas, of the Bureau of Ethnology, announced with considerable emphasis that he had discovered the “key” to the Mayan hieroglyphs; and in July, 1893, published a detailed description and applications of it.[[13]] In theory, it is the same as Dr. Cresson’s, that is, that the elements of the glyphs were employed as true phonetic elements, or letters. In the article referred to he gives the characters for the following letters of the Maya alphabet: b, c, c’, dz, ch, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, pp, t, th, tz, x, v, z; also for a large number of syllabic sounds which he claimed to have recognized. With such an apparatus, if it had any value, one would expect to reach prompt and important results; but, aside from the doubtful character of many of his analyses, the fact that this “key” has wholly failed to add any tangible, valuable addition to our knowledge of the inscriptions is enough to show its uselessness; and the same may be said of all the attempts mentioned.
A slight inspection of the Maya manuscripts and of almost any of the inscriptions will satisfy the observer that they are made up of three classes of objects or elements:—
1. Arithmetical signs, numerals, and numerical computations,
2. Pictures or figures of men, animals, or fantastic beings, of ceremonies or transactions, and of objects of art or utility; and,
3. Simple or composite characters, plainly intended for graphic elements according to some system for the preservation of knowledge.