The stone statues at Copan, for example, could not all have been done by the same artist, nor at the same time. I have elsewhere shown that two of these statues are absolutely identical. How was this accomplished? Was one stone taken to the foot of the other and cut by it as a pattern? This is unlikely, especially as in the case mentioned the scale of the two statues is quite different. I think it far more likely that each was cut from a drawing, or series of drawings, which must have been preserved by priestly authority. The work at any one place must have required many years, and could not have been done by a single man; nor is it probable that it was all done in one generation. Separate hieroglyphs must have been preserved in the same way. It is this rigid adherence to a type, and the banishment of artistic fancy, which will allow of progress in the deciphering of the inscriptions or the comparison of the statues. Line after line, ornament after ornament, is repeated with utter fidelity. The reason of this is not far to seek. This, however, is not the place to explain it, but rather to take advantage of the fact itself. We may fairly say that were it not so, and with our present data, all advances would be tenfold more difficult.
[III.]
SYSTEM OF NOMENCLATURE.
It is impossible without a special and expensive font of type to refer pictorially to each character, and therefore some system of nomenclature must be adopted. The one I employ I could now slightly improve, but it has been used and results have been obtained by it. It is sufficient for the purpose, and I will, therefore, retain it rather than to run the risk of errors by changing it to a more perfect system. I have numbered the plates in Stephens’s Central America according to the following scheme:
In each plate I have numbered the hieroglyphs, giving each one its own number. Thus the hieroglyphs of the Copan altar (vol. i, p. 141) which I have called plate Va, are numbered from 1 to 36 according to this scheme—
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 |
And the right hand side of the Palenque Cross tablet, as given by Rau in his memoir published by the Smithsonian Institution (1880), has the numbers—
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| 2030 | 2031 | 2032 | 2033 | 2034 | 2035 |
| 2040 | 2041 | 2042 | 2043 | 2044 | 2045 |
| 2050 | 2051 | 2052 | 2053 | 2054 | 2055 |
| * | * | * | * | * | * |
| * | * | * | * | * | * |
| 3080 | 3081 | 3082 | 3083 | 3084 | 3085 |
These are consecutive with the numbers which I have attached to the left-hand side, as given by Stephens. Whenever I have stated any results here, I have also given the means by which any one can number a copy of Stephens’s work in the way which I have adopted, and thus the means of testing my conclusions is in the hands of every one who desires to do so.
In cases where only a part of a hieroglyphic is referred to, I have placed its number in a parenthesis, as 1826 see (122), by which I mean that the character 1826 is to be compared with a part of the character 122. The advantages of this system are many: for example; a memorandum can easily be taken that two hieroglyphs are alike, thus 2072 = 2020 and 2073 = 2021. Hence the pair 2020–2021, read horizontally, occurs again at the point 2072–2073, etc. Horizontal pairs will be known by their numbers being consecutive, as 2020–2021; vertical pairs will usually be known by their numbers differing by 10. Thus, 2075–2085 are one above the other.