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THE TROANO CODEX
AND
THE HIERATIC WRITING
OF CENTRAL AMERICA
By LÉON DE ROSNY
The decipherment of the katunic writing of Central America seems of a nature to secure for the science to which the name Americanism has been given an important place in the domain of contemporary research. Until quite recently, the so-called figurative and didactic paintings of the ancient Mexicans promised almost alone to yield interesting revelations concerning the native history of the New World prior to the great discovery of Christopher Columbus. At least, these manuscripts were of a nature to make known to us, to a certain extent, the civilization of the Indians, according to the Indians themselves. One could not, however, compare these crude images to a true writing, nor admit on their account the cultivation of letters among the autochthonous populations of the transatlantic hemisphere. Thus Alexander von Humboldt denied that writing had been known and practiced anywhere but in the Old Continent, and the opinion of this scholar was generally adopted.
Progress has been made, an error dispelled. It is known today that ancient America not only knew the art of writing, but had possessed numerous sculpted inscriptions and manuscripts drawn according to a graphic system very nearly equivalent to that used by the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, or the Chinese.
Until now the existence of a genuine writing has been established only in the Yucatan peninsula, in the regions occupied by the Maya race. This writing was probably widespread throughout the whole extent of the isthmian region of inter-oceanic America. Later discoveries will perhaps teach us that this art was cultivated well beyond these narrow limits: and already we possess some indications of a nature to suggest that the peoples of Mexico, and even those of Peru (at a period prior to the dynasty of the Incas), had likewise known how to note language by means of legible signs.
But without troubling ourselves, for the moment, to give such an extension to the domain of writing in ancient America, it suffices us to know that it was cultivated at the heart of this vast part of the world, and that monuments of this writing have been preserved for us, so as to interest the learned world in the exploration of a domain in which discoveries, of a scope doubtless considerable, are reserved for the persevering labor of archaeologists, linguists, and palaeographers.
Katunic writing, well before the publication of the Relación of Diego de Landa — to which the opening of a new path for Americanism is owed — had seemed to us worthy of exceptional attention, and we have occupied ourselves with it, on several occasions, in this Review. Now that the votes of authoritative scholars allow confidence to be placed in the new method adopted for the decipherment of this writing, we believe it useful to place in the hands of our readers some materials for work, so as to invite them to associate themselves with our task.
Diego de Landa, bishop of Yucatan, was the destroyer of a considerable number of written documents of Yucatec antiquity. He attempted to annihilate down to the very last of these documents in which were recorded the religious ideas of the peoples whom the Spaniards were seeking to convert to Christian doctrine. By a singular caprice of destiny, it is to this same prelate, who wished to make every trace of a literature he judged tainted with a diabolical origin disappear, that we shall doubtless owe our someday knowing something of that very literature. Indeed, in the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, of which he is the author, Diego de Landa, after having reported various kinds of information on the manners and customs of the Mayas, sees fit to speak to us of those very books which he had been proud to have delivered to the flames. The manuscript of this Relación, recovered by the Abbé Brasseur in the archives of the Royal Academy of History in Madrid, is unfortunately only an imperfect copy of the original work, and the part relating to the books, the writing, and the language of the Yucatecans appears to have been abridged by the copyist, in whose eyes it offered but rather mediocre interest. The result is that the palaeographic data furnished us by the Madrid manuscript are of the most incomplete kind and, what is worse, of a regrettable obscurity in the part most important for our studies.
The Relación of Diego de Landa furnishes us, nevertheless, with very precious indications concerning the Yucatec calendar and the signs employed to note the days and months in that calendar. It is with the help of these indications, imperfect in so many respects, that the decipherment of the hieratic writing of Central America has been attempted.
I have no intention of reproducing here, even in a succinct and abridged form, the work which I published recently on the interpretation of katunic characters (1). The purpose of this article is to place at the disposal of the readers of this Review the information we owe to Diego de Landa, and to call their attention to the possibility of frequently restoring signs in the numerous deteriorated parts of the hieratic manuscripts we possess, so as to facilitate their interpretation.
This system of restoring the old written documents of the Mayas can readily be extended to the four manuscripts known up to this day. I shall attempt for the present to apply it to one of them, the Troano Codex, lithographed with remarkable care at the Imprimerie Nationale of Paris.
I
Landa's indications relating to the hieratic writing of Yucatan comprise: 1° The signs of the days; 2° The signs of the months; 3° A paradigm of the phonetic signs of Maya hieratic writing.
The day-signs offer, for the present, for our studies, the greatest interest, in the sense that they
(1) Essai sur le déchiffrement de l'Écriture hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale [Essay on the Decipherment of the Hieratic Writing of Central America] (Paris, 1876-77), in-folio, with plates.
have been recovered in great numbers in the four Maya manuscripts that we possess. These signs, in the form Landa gives them, are contained in the following table:
1. — Kan. 6. — Muluc. 11. — Ix. 16. — Cauac.
2. — Chicchan. 7. — [illegible] 12. — Men. 17. — Ahau.
3. — Cimi. 8. — Chuen. 13. — [illegible] 18. — Ymic.
4. — Manik. 9. — Eb. 14. — Caban. 19. — Ik.
5. — Lamat. 10. — Ben. 15. — Ezanab. 20. — Akbal.
The Troano manuscript, in which all these signs are found, does not always reproduce them in an identical manner. I have given, in my Essai sur le déchiffrement de l'écriture katounique, fairly numerous variants of these signs, the value of which I have succeeded in establishing beyond dispute.
At the outset of my attempts at interpreting the hieratic texts of Central America, I asked myself what these day-signs, so often repeated throughout all the known manuscripts, might express, and in particular whether they recurred in some order of a nature to furnish chronological data. I was not long in recognizing that such an order existed and could be determined, almost everywhere, in a regular and mathematical manner. Indeed, the days noted in the Troano Codex, for example, are most often reproduced there in series of 5, spaced from one another by 5, by 6, by 12, or by 16. Once this order was recognized, it became easy for me to restore a multitude of signs effaced in part or even entirely, and to form for myself a copy of the hieratic manuscript in question, in which the gaps are almost negligible as regards the series of characters relating to the calendar. One may judge of these restorations by those which we have indicated on the plate accompanying this article (1).
People who would like to apply this method to the study of the hieratic texts of Yucatan will not be slow to recognize the advantage that can be drawn from it; but they will also find that, in certain places, the regular order which so singularly simplifies the work of decipherment appears altered. Thus, page 35, compartment 3 (2), we see a column of 5 signs,
(1) See Plate XII-XIII.
(2) See Plate XIV.
Revue Orientale et Américaine.
42
two of which are almost completely effaced; but judging by the last ones, whose clarity is perfect, we would be tempted to believe that here we have days spaced 4 apart. (Chicchan is the 2nd day; Muluc the 6th: interval 4.) Examination of the other signs in the column soon reveals to us an irregularity or an exception. The second sign is very distinct: it is Ben, the 10th day; the third, partly effaced, nonetheless shows unmistakable traces of the sign, the 14th day, which likewise gives us the interval of four days noted just now; but between the 14th day and the 2nd day that follows it, there is an interval of eight days, the number of Yucatecan days being 20 (20 − 14 + 2 = 8). Here, then, is an irregularity for which paleographers must seek the explanation. This irregularity is not the only one, and we find another of far greater importance in our eyes, in folios 23, 22, 21, and 20 of the Codex Troano.
This example will suffice to give an idea of the kind of difficulties that we are called upon to resolve as soon as possible in the field of the decipherment of the hieratic writing of Central America. A certain amount of divination is necessary to achieve any success in this order of research. It is therefore greatly to be hoped—
Revue Orientale et Américaine.
tome IV.
Pl. XXIV, c.
(35)
1 Ymix.
Ben.
(10th day), Ben.
Caban.
1 Chicchan
Chicchan.
1 Caban.
Muluc.
(6th day). (1)
1 Muluc.
Days exceptionally
placed
(20, 14)
Series
Codex Troano
Placement of
the signs of the
days.
The Codex Troano and Hieratic Writing. 43
—that the number of pioneers in this new branch of Americanism may become greater, so that the results of one and another may be checked, criticized, and that light may spring from discussion. This short note is an appeal to paleographers of good will; we should be most gratified if it could be heeded, and the Revue orientale et américaine will make it a duty to open its columns to all scientific communications that might be sent to it along the lines we have just indicated (1).
II
The month signs given in the Relación of Diego de Landa have unfortunately not been established as easily as the day signs in the known hieratic manuscripts. Here too we call for the research of Americanists. As a document, we reproduce below the table of these signs:
(1) We propose, for our part, to publish successively, in the Revue Orientale et Américaine, the new results to which our studies will lead us, so as to complete, to the best of our ability, the data already acquired, and notably that which we have presented for the judgment of Americanists in our Essai sur le déchiffrement de l'Écriture hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale.
44
Revue Orientale et Américaine.
The question of the phonetic characters of the hieratic writing of Central America is far more complex and difficult to resolve than
The Codex Troano and Hieratic Writing. 45
that of the day and month signs. We shall deal with it in our forthcoming issues.
Finally, we believe we should close this short note with the bibliographical list of the principal writings relating to the decipherment of the katunic writing whose publication has been brought to our attention up to this day:
1864. — Relation des choses du Yucatan, by Diego de Landa. Spanish text and French translation facing, including the signs of the Calendar and of the hieroglyphic Alphabet of the Maya language, accompanied by various historical and chronological documents, with an abridged French-Maya Grammar and Vocabulary, by Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg. Paris, Arthus-Bertrand, 1864. — In-8, cxii-516 pp. (25 fr.).
1865. — Maya Hieroglyphic Alphabet of Yucatan, by William Bollaert (n.p., n.d.), London, 1865). — In-8, 9 pp.
1869. — Lettre à M. Léon de Rosny sur la découverte de Documents relatifs à la haute antiquité américaine et sur le Déchiffrement et l'interprétation de l'Écriture phonétique et figurative de la langue Maya, by Brasseur de Bourbourg. Paris, Amyot, 1869. — In-8, 20 pp. and 2 lithographed plates (3 fr.).
1869. — Manuscrit Troano. Études sur le système graphique des Mayas, by Brasseur de Bourbourg. Paris, Imprimerie impériale, 1869. — 2 vols. in-4, chromolithograph plates (100 fr.).
1869. — Essai de déchiffrement d'un fragment d'inscription palenquéenne, by H. de Charencey. Paris, 1869. — In-8 (3 fr. 50).
1870. — The Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan. By
46 Revue Orientale et Américaine.
D. G. Brinton. New York, 1870. — In-8, 8 pages.
1873. — Examination of Central American Hieroglyphs; Of Yucatan — including the Dresden Codex, the Guatemalian of Paris, and the Troano of Madrid; the Hieroglyphs of Palenque, Copan, Nicaragua, Veraguas, and New Granada; by the recently discovered Maya alphabet. By William Bollaert (n.p., n.d., London, 1873). — In-8, 28 pp.
1875. — Mémoire sur la numération dans la langue et dans l'écriture des anciens Mayas, by Léon de Rosny. Nancy, December 1875. — In-8, 24 pp. (2 fr.).
1876. — Essai sur le déchiffrement de l'Écriture Hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale, by Léon de Rosny. Paris, Maisonneuve et Cie, 1876. — In-folio, with lithographed plates in black and in color (75 fr.).
1876. — Recherches sur le Codex Troano, by H. de Charencey. Paris, E. Leroux, 1876. — In-8, 15 pp.
1877. — L'Interprétation de l'Écriture Sacrée du Yucatan, by Éd. Madier de Montjau (pp. 17 to 36 of his Études Critiques sur l'Archéologie Américaine et sur l'Ethnographie du Nouveau-Monde). Paris, E. Leroux, 1877. — In-8, 130 pp. and 7 plates (4 fr.).
1878. — Essai sur le Déchiffrement de l'Écriture Hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale, by Léon de Rosny (Review, by G. Maspero, in the Revue Critique of 23 March 1878).
1878. — (Review of the same work, by A. Siméon, in the Revue Bibliographique Universelle, March 1878, p. 230 ff.).
1878. — (Review of the same work, and Notice by A. Bonnetty, in the Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne, 1878, vol. XV, p. 228 ff.).
Any new publication relating to the
The Codex Troano and Hieratic Writing. 47
decipherment of the katunic writing, book, pamphlet, or article, will be announced in this Review, as soon as it comes to our knowledge.
—7t..n-537
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