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
and 2 and on the other side 44, 45, 3 were adjoining; then the gods would
here be grouped together, which follow each other also on pages 29 and
30. It cannot be denied that this supposition explains the bad condition
of leaf 2 44 still better, because then it must have been the outermost
of the manuscript; 44 would be the real title page, so to say, and on p.
45 the writer began, not ended, his representation, with the closer
writing of which I have spoken, and only afterward passed on to a more
splendid style; and this assumption tallies very well with some other
facts. But all this can only be cleared up after further progress has
been made in deciphering the manuscript.
"In two places, moreover, this first manuscript shows an extension of the
drawings from one page over to the neighboring one, namely, from 4 to 5
and from 30 to 31. This is not found on the second manuscript. From
continuity of contents, if we are allowed to assume it from similarity of
pictures and partition, we may suppose this manuscript to be divided into
chapters in the following manner: pp. 1-2 (then follows the unfinished
and disconnected page 3), 4-17, 18-23 (here follows p. 24, without
pictures), 25-28, 29-33, 34-35, 36-41.
"Compared with this, manuscript B rarely shows a tripartition, but on pp.
65-68 and 51-57 a bipartition by one line. A further difference is this,
that A out of 45 pages has only one (p. 24) without pictures, while B out
of 29 pages has 9 without pictures (51, 52, 59, 63, 64, 70, 71, 72, 73),
nothing but writing being found on them. Page 74, differing from all
others, forms the closing tableau of the whole; and, similarly, p. 60,
the last of the front, shows a peculiar character. A closer connection of
contents may be suspected between pp. 46-50, 53-58, 61-62, 65-68.
"The two manuscripts also differ greatly in the employment of the sign,
or rather signs, differing little from each other, which resemble a
representation of the human eye and consist of two curves, one opening
above and the other below and joined at their right and left ends. These
signs occur only on 5 out of the 45 pages of Codex A (1, 2, 24, 31, 43),
while they occur on 16 pages out of the 29 of Codex B (48, 51, 52, 53,
55, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70, 71, 72, 73).
"I believe that the differences above mentioned, to which others will
probably be added, are sufficient to justify my hypothesis of the
original independence of the two codices. Whoever looks over the whole
series of leaves without preconception cannot escape the feeling, on
passing from leaf 45 to leaf 46, that something different begins here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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