Now, the hieroglyphs must be phonetic or pictorial, or a mixture of the two. If they are phonetic, it will take more than one symbol to make a word, and we shall have groups of like characters when the same word is written in two places. If the signs are pictorial, the same thing will follow; that is, we shall have groups recurring when the same idea recurs. Further, we know that the subjects treated of in these tablets must be comparatively simple, and that names, as of gods, kings, etc., must necessarily recur.
The names, then, will be the first words deciphered. At present no single name is known. These considerations, together with our system of nomenclature, will enable us to take some steps.
Take, for example, the right-hand side of the Palenque cross tablet as given by Rau. See our figure 48, which is Plate LVI of Stephens (vol. ii, p. 345), with the addition of the part now in the National Museum at Washington.
Our system of numbering is here
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| 2030 | 2031 | 2032 | 2033 | 2034 | 2035 |
| * | * | * | * | * | * |
| * | * | * | * | * | * |
| * | * | * | * | * | * |
| 3080 | 3081 | 3082 | 3083 | 3084 | 3085 |
Now pick out the duplicate hieroglyphs in this; that is, run through the tablet, and wherever 2020 occurs erase the number which fills the place and write in 2020. Do the same for 2021, 2022, etc., down to 3084. The result will be as follows:
RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF PALENQUE CROSS TABLET (RAU).
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |||||
 | | |||||||||
| 2030 | 2031 | 2032 | 2033 | 2034 | 2035 | |||||
| ||||||||||
| 2040 | 2041 | 2042 |  | 2025 | 2020 | 2021 | ||||
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| 2050 | 2051 | 2034 | 2053 | 2054 | 2055 | |||||
| ||||||||||
| 2053 | 2061 | 2062 | 2063 | 2064 | 2065 | |||||
| 2070 | 2071 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022? | 2024? |  ? | ||||
| ||||||||||
| 2053 | 2020 | 2082 | 2083 | 2025 | 2053 | |||||
| 2021 | 2091 | 2092 | | 2025 | 2094 | 2095 | ||||
| 3000 | 2023 | 2034 | 2053 | 2033 | 3005 | |||||
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| 3010 | 2083 | 3012 | 2024 | 3014 | 2091 | |||||
| 2053 | 3021 | 2023 | 2020 | 3024 | 2024 | |||||
| ? | 2024 | 2025 | 2021 | 3033 | | 2025 | 2034* | |||
| | |||||||||
| 2053* | 3021 | 3042 | 3043 | 2035 | 3045 | |||||
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| 3050 See 2082 | 2083 | | 2025 | 2034 | 3054 | 3055 | ||||
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| 2024 | 2020 | 2035 | 3063 | 2024 | 2025 | |||||
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| 2021 | 2031 | 2020 | 2021 | 2035 | 3045 | |||||
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| 3080 | 3081 | 2091 | 2093 | 2020 | 2021 | |||||
| ||||||||||
14 cases of horizontal pairs; 4 cases of vertical pairs; 102 characters in all, of which 51 appear more than once, so that there are but 51 independent hieroglyphs.
Here the first two lines are unchanged. In the third line we find that 2043 is the same as 2025, 2044 = 2020, 2045 = 2021, and so on, and we write the smallest number in each case.