[VII.]
ARE THE HIEROGLYPHS OF COPAN AND PALENQUE IDENTICAL?

One of the first questions to be settled is whether the same system of writing was employed at Palenque and at Copan. Before any study of the meanings of the separate chiffres can be made, we must have our material properly assorted, and must not include in the figures we are examining for the detection of a clue, any which may belong to a system possibly very different.

The opinion of Stephens and of later writers is confirmed by my comparison of the Palenque and the Copan series; that is, it becomes evident that the latter series is far the older.

In Nicaragua and Copan the statues of gods were placed at the foot of the pyramid; farther north, as at Palenque, they were placed in temples at the summit. Such differences show a marked change in customs, and must have required much time for their accomplishment. In this time did the picture-writing change, or, indeed, was it ever identical?

To settle the question whether they were written on the same system, I give here the results of a rapid survey of the card-catalogue of hieroglyphs. A more minute examination is not necessary, as the present one is quite sufficient to show that the system employed at the two places was the same in its general character and almost identical even in details. The practical result of this conclusion is that similar characters of the Copan and Palenque series may be used interchangeably.

Fig. 51.—Synonymoushieroglyphs
from Copan and Palenque.

A detailed study of the undoubted synonyms of the two places will afford much light on the manner in which these characters were gradually evolved. This is not the place for such a study, but it is interesting to remark how, even in unmistakable synonyms, the Palenque character is always the most conventional, the least pictorial; that is, the latest. Examples of this are No. 7, Plate Va, and No. 1969, Plate LVI. The mask in profile which forms the left-hand edge of No. 7 seems to have been conventionalized into the two hooks and the ball, which have the same place in No. 1969.

The larger of these two was cut on stone, the smaller in stucco.

The mask has been changed into the ball and hooks; the angular nose ornament into a single ball, easier to make and quite as significant to the Maya priest. But to us the older (Copan) figure is infinitely more significant. The curious rows of little balls which are often placed at the left-hand edge of the various chiffres are also conventions for older forms. It is to be noted that these balls always occur on the left hand of the hieroglyphs, except in one case, the chiffre 1975 in the Palenque cross tablet, on which the left-hand acolyte stands.

The conclusion that the two series are both written on the same system, and that like chiffres occurring at the two places are synonyms, will, I think, be sufficiently evident to any one who will himself examine the following cases. It is the nature of the agreements which proves the thesis, and not the number of cases here cited. The reader will remember that the Copan series comprises Plates I to XXIII, inclusive; the Palenque series, Plate XXIV and higher numbers.