Produced by PM for Bureau of American Ethnology, Julia Miller, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr) Transcriber's Note: This book was originally published as a part of: Powell, J. W. 1881 _First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-'80._ pp. 205-245. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. The table of contents and index included in this version of the book was extracted from the complete volume. A number of typographical errors found in the original text have been maintained in this version. They are marked in the text with a [TN-#]. A description of each error is found in the complete list at the end of the text. Original spelling has been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled words is found at the end of the text. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. J. W. POWELL, DIRECTOR. STUDIES IN CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING. BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN, PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, U. S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of illustrations 206 Introductory 207 Materials for the present investigation 210 System of nomenclature 211 In what order are the hieroglyphs read? 221 The card catalogue of hieroglyphs 223 Comparison of plates I and IV (Copan) 224 Are the hieroglyphs of Copan and Palenque identical? 227 Huitzilopochtli, Mexican god of war, etc. 229 Tlaloc, or his Maya representative 237 Cukulean or Quetzalcoatl 239 Comparison of the signs of the Maya months 243 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS