I translated the results, and gave them to the public in this country in the same year (1870), together with a copy of the alphabet of Landa,[1] which was the earliest notice of the subject which appeared in the United States.
The conclusion which M. de Charencey reached was that the Codex Troano is "largely made up of combinations of numerals and reckonings more or less complicated, either astronomical or astrological, the precise purpose of which it were as yet premature to state." He especially addressed himself to the Plates VIII to XIII, and showed by diagrams the arrangement in them of the signs of the days, and the probability that this arrangement was taken from a "wheel," such as we know the Mayas were accustomed to use in adjusting their calendar.
An ingenious and suggestive analysis of Landa's alphabet and of various figures in the Dresden and Troano Codices was carried out by Dr. Harrison Allen, professor of comparative anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania. It was published in 1875, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.
In the following year (1876) appeared the first part of Prof. Leon de Rosny's Essai sur le Déchiffrement de l'Écriture Hiératique de l'Amerique Centrale, folio. The second part was published shortly afterward, but the third part not till some years later. Professor de Rosny has collected many facts which throw a side light on the questions he discusses. He points out that the signs are to be read from left to right; he gives a valuable list of variants of the same sign as it appears in different manuscripts; and he distinguishes the signs of the cardinal points, although it is doubtful whether he assigns to each its correct value. He has also offered strong evidence to fix the phonetic value of some characters. Altogether, his work ranks as the most thorough and fruitful which has heretofore been done in this field.
In 1879 Prof. Charles Rau published, through the Smithsonian Institution, his work, "The Palenque Tablet in the United States National Museum, Washington." Its fifth chapter is devoted to the "aboriginal writing in Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America," and offers a judicious summary of what had been accomplished up to that date. He defends the position,
- ↑ The Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan. By D. G. Brinton, M. D. New York, J. Sabin & Sons, 1870, 8vo., p. 8.
