The cards were 6.5 by 4.5 inches. The chiffre was pasted on, in the center of the top space. Its number and the plate from which it came were placed as in the cut. The numbers of hieroglyphs which resembled the one in question could be written on the right half of the card, and the numbers corresponding to different recurrences of this hieroglyph occupied the left half.
All this part of the work was most faithfully and intelligently performed for me by Miss Mary Lockwood, to whom I desire to express the full amount of my obligations. A mistake in any part would have been fatal. But no mistakes occurred.
These cards could now be arranged in any way I saw fit. The simple chiffres, for example, could be placed so as to bring like ones together. A compound hieroglyph could be placed among simple ones agreeing with any one of its components, and so on.
The expense of forming this card catalogue of about 1,500 single hieroglyphs was borne by the Ethnological Bureau of the Smithsonian Institution, and the catalogue is the property of that bureau, forming only one of its many rich collections of American picture-writings.
[VI.]
COMPARISON OF PLATES I AND IV (COPAN).
In examining the various statues at Copan, as given by Stephens, one naturally looks for points of striking resemblance or striking difference. Where all is unknown, even the smallest sign is examined, in the hope that it may prove a clue. The Plate I, Fig. 49, has a twisted knot (the “square knot” of sailors) of cords over its head, and above this is a chiffre composed of ellipses, and above this again a sign like a sea-shell. A natural suggestion was that these might be the signs for the name of the personage depicted in Plate I. If this is so and we should find the same sign elsewhere in connection with a figure, we should expect to find this second figure like the first in every particular. This would be a rigid test of the theory. After looking through the Palenque series, and finding no similar figure and sign, I examined the Copan series, and in Plate IV, our Fig. 50, I found the same signs exactly; i.e., the knot and the two chiffres.
Fig. 49.—Statue at Copan.
At first sight there is only the most general resemblance between the personages represented in the two plates; as Stephens says in his original account of them, they are “in many respects similar.” If he had known them to be the same, he would not have wasted his time in drawing them. The scale of the two drawings and of the two statues is different; but the two personages are the same identically. Figure for figure, ornament for ornament, they correspond. It is unnecessary to give the minute comparison here in words. It can be made by any one from the two plates herewith. Take any part of Plate I, find the corresponding part of Plate IV, and whether it is human feature or sculptured ornament the two will be found to be the same.