In connection with the counting of time, a reference to the bottom part of the chiffre 3000 of the Palenque cross tablet should be made. This is a knot tied up in a string or scarf; and we know this to have been the method of expressing the expiration and completion of a cycle of years. It occurs just above the symbol 3010, the chiffre for a metal.
An examination of the original stone in the National Museum, Washington, which is now in progress, has already convinced me that the methods which I have described in the preceding pages promise other interesting confirmations of the results I have reached. For the time, I must leave the matter in its present state. I think I am justified in my confidence that suitable methods of procedure have been laid down, and that certain important results have already been reached.
I do not believe that the conclusions stated will be changed, but I am confident that a rich reward will be found by any competent person who will continue the study of these stones. The proper names now known will serve as points of departure, and it is probable that some research will give us the signs for verbs or adjectives connected with them.
It is an immense step to have rid ourselves of the phonetic or alphabetic idea, and to have found the manner in which the Maya mind represented attributes and ideas. Their method was that of all nations at the origin of written language; that is, pure picture-writing. At Copan this is found in its earliest state; at Palenque it was already highly conventionalized. The step from the Palenque character to that used in the Kabah inscription is apparently not greater than the step from the latter to the various manuscripts. An important research would be the application of the methods so ably applied by Dr. Allen to tracing the evolution of the latter characters from their earlier forms. In this way it will be possible to extend our present knowledge materially.
[225-*] The Life Form in Art, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., vol. xv, 1873, p. 325.
[233-*] From Kingsborough, vol. i, plate 48, it appears that Tlacli Tonatio may have had four hands. His name meant (?) Let there be light.
[237-*] See Kingsborough, vol. ii, Plate I, of the Laud MS.
[243-*] Since this was written I have seen a paper by Dr. Valentini, “The Landa alphabet a Spanish fabrication” (read before the American Antiquarian Society, April 28, 1880), and the conclusions of that paper seem to me to be undoubtedly correct. They are the same as those just given, but while my own were reached by a study of the stones and in the course of a general examination, Dr. Valentini has addressed himself successfully to the solution of a special problem.
[244-*] See Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire du Mexique, vol. i, p. 328.