Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices: Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-85, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1888, pages 253-372Thomas, Cyrus
History
Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices: Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-85, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1888, pages 253-372
Thomas, Cyrus
Codex Dresdensis Maya; Maya language
"On April 27, 1832, when the copy had not yet arrived at Dresden, an
anonymous writer, in No. 101 of the Leipziger Zeitung, gave a notice of
this donation, being unfortunate enough to confound Humboldt's copy with
that of Lord Kingsborough, not having seen the work himself. Ebert, in
the Dresden Anzeiger, May 5, made an angry rejoinder to this "hasty and
obtrusive notice."[TN-1] Böttiger, whom we mentioned above and who till
then was a close friend of Ebert, on May 12, in the last named journal,
defended the anonymous writer (who perhaps was himself) in an extremely
violent tone. Ebert's replies in the same journal became more and more
ferocious, till Böttiger, in an article of May 25 (No. 150 of the same
journal), broke off the dispute at this point. Thus the great
bibliographer and the great archæologist were made enemies for a long
time by means of our codex.
"From Kingsborough's work various specimens of the manuscript passed into
other books; thus we find some in Silvestre, Paléographie universelle,
Paris, 1839-'41, fol.; in Rosny, Les écritures figuratives et
hiéroglyphiques des peuples anciens et modernes, Paris, 1860, 4to; and
also in Madier de Montjou, Archives de la société américaine de France,
2^de série, tome I, table V.
"In 1834 Ebert died, and was followed as head librarian by K. C.
Falkenstein. He, unlike his predecessor, strove especially to make the
library as much as possible accessible to the public. Visits and
examinations of the library became much more frequent, and our
manuscript, being very liable to injury, on account of its material, had
to be withdrawn from the hands of visitors, if it was desired to make it
accessible to their sight. It was therefore laid between glass plates and
thus hung up freely, so that both sides were visible. In this position it
still hangs in the hall of the library, protected from rude hands, it is
true, but at the same time exposed to another enemy, daylight, against
which it has been protected only in recent time by green screens. Still
it does not seem to have suffered much from light during these four
decades; at least two former officers of the library, who were appointed
one in 1828 and the other in 1834, affirm that at that time the colors
were not notably fresher than now. This remark is important, because the
coloring in Humboldt, as well as in Lord Kingsborough, by its freshness
gives a wrong impression of the coloring of the original, which in fact
is but feeble; it may have resembled these copies some 300 years ago.
"In 1836, when the manuscript was being preserved in the manner
indicated, the two unequal parts, which were considered as a whole and
which no one seems to have thought susceptible of being deciphered, were
divided into two approximately equal parts from considerations of space
and for esthetic reasons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account