Paul Schellhas

Paul Schellhas was a German scholar whose study of Maya manuscripts helped establish a durable system for discussing the figures represented in them. Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts examines images in the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices, comparing attributes, costume, signs, and recurring actions in order to distinguish individual deities. The Peabody Museum published the English work in 1904, and the revised edition included sixty-five illustrations. Selma Wesselhoeft and A. M. Parker translated it, with revisions by Schellhas himself. A lasting feature of the study is its use of letter designations for figures whose indigenous names were uncertain, a cautious convention that allowed later researchers to compare scenes without claiming more certainty than the evidence supported. Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts belongs to the early history of Maya iconographic research, yet its organized plates and transparent comparisons still show why Schellhas’s classifications became a reference point for subsequent scholarship.