Studies in Central American Picture-Writing

Studies in Central American Picture-Writing is by Edward S. Holden, professor of mathematics at the U. S. Naval Observatory. The table of contents lists a List of illustrations and an Introductory section, among others. The text asks whether the tablets are to be read in horizontal lines from right to left, or the reverse, and in vertical columns up or down. The writer says that the methods applied by Brasseur de Bourbourg and others, who start from the misleading and unlucky alphabet handed down by Landa, were utterly and totally distrusted.

The text describes the chiffre or symbol of a principal figure as perhaps represented in his belt, a St. Andrew's cross with a circle at each end of it. The text says the main figure has two hands folded against his breast and two other arms extended, one in front and the other behind, which carry two birds. The text says the only sign about which there is little or no doubt is No. 42, which seems pretty certainly to be the sign of the Maya month Pop.