The Perez Codex was discovered just fifty years ago by Prof. Leon de
Rosny, while searching through the Bibliotheque Imperiale, Paris, in the
hope of bringing to light some documents of interest for the then newly
awakened study of Pre-Columbian America. It was found by him in a basket
among a lot of old papers, black with dust and practically abandoned in
a chimney corner. From a few words with the name Perez, written on a
torn scrap of paper then around it but since lost, it received its name.
Being restored to its proper place in the Library, it was in 1864
photographed by order of M. Victor Duruy, Minister of Instruction, and a
few copies issued without further explanatory notes than the printed
wrappers. The number of copies is stated by Prof. de Rosny to have been
very small; in Leclerc's _Bibl. Amer._ (1878, No. 2290) it is given as
only 10, and in Brasseur's _Bibl. Mex.-Guat._ (page 95), as 50. A copy
is in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, and referred
to in their publications as a most fortunate acquisition. I had the good
fortune to secure a copy some ten years ago, and one other has recently
appeared in a Leipzig catalog at a high price. Beyond these I have not
traced any other copy.
In 1872 Prof. de Rosny published a reproduction, drawn by hand, which,
as stated by him later, may be disregarded for practical purposes.[7-*]
In 1887 he issued a facsimile edition in colors, 85 copies, which up to
the present time has remained the only attempt to show the Codex in its
proper colors, and has become exceedingly difficult to procure; so much
so that it was only after seven years search that I was able to secure
my own copy.[8-*]
In 1888 he reissued the Codex, uncolored, with the same letter-press,
and in an edition of 100 copies. This has also become scarce.
Each of these three editions has its advantages and disadvantages. The
colored edition of 1887, having been worked over by hand, in
lithography, is defective in various places, both as regards the black
of the figures and glyphs, and in the colors. Coloring exists on the
original codex which was not reproduced at all in the edition, and the
colors given are in many cases not exact. Thus on pages 19 and 20 two
different reds are used for the backgrounds, whereas but one is found in
the original; on pages 15, 16 the figures are a turquoise green, and on
pages 17, 18 an olive green, the correct color for all four being
turquoise green.
I have been able to find no inaccuracy in the 1888 edition, which is
indeed stated in the introduction to be entirely by mechanical process,
without hand intervention; but being reproduced by printer's ink in
black only, not only do the colors not appear, but the chromatic values
are actually far inferior to the photographs of 1864. It was stated
further by Prof. de Rosny that some features of the MS. had been lost by
deterioration in the 25 years previous to his editions of 1887 and 1888,
but this I have not been able to verify in any important point.
The photographs and the edition of 1888 are to all general purposes
identical; but, notwithstanding that the photographs are steadily
yellowing by age, the chromatic values are so far superior that I have
continually come to find them the court of final decision in doubtful
matters. In a very considerable number of instances a close examination
of the photographs has suggested the presence of faint lines of color
on glyphs or figures, which was entirely indistinguishable in both of
the printed editions, and which was yet in every case confirmed,
although sometimes with difficulty, by the examination of the original
MS.
The proved value, as well as the scarcity, of these photographs was so
great, that in 1905 I had my set photographed twice, by dry and wet
plate processes, and a few copies printed after a careful comparison and
selection of the two sets of plates. It is from these that the present
edition has grown.[9-*]
The present edition, save for the photographs thus reproduced, having
been entirely redrawn, and partly restored, it is fitting to detail just
what has been done in this respect.
At the very beginning of my introduction to Maya studies the enormous
burdens placed on research therein at every turn, bore upon me as upon
every other student. The subject and its possibilities stimulate
enthusiasm to the highest degree; the rewards of success are greater
than those of any like problem today; and yet, fifty years since the
present Codex was discovered, and thirty years since Dr. Foerstemann's
unsurpassable edition of the Dresden Codex, the actual workers on the
problem are the barest handful. A few scattered and obscure references
amongst the volumes on volumes of Spanish writers, nearly all
untranslated, most of them scarce or almost unprocurable, and many not
even printed, make up the literature to be searched out. And a few
points of decipherment won and safely fixed by the researchers, from
Brasseur, de Rosny, Pousse, Brinton and others a generation ago, to
Messrs. Bowditch, Seler, Goodman and a few others of today, are all we
have--standing out in a wilderness of guesses by many writers, needless
of naming.
Of course the prime and absolute necessity of such a study is true
facsimiles; but the task of using even these, taken as they must be from
much defaced inscriptions and manuscripts, is too obvious for comment.
So from the very first of my studies I began to cherish thoughts of the
day when Maya could be printed with type, and classified indexes to the
glyphs at hand. From one point of view such facilities can only be
expected to come _after_ decipherment; from another, in absence of
bilingual keys, they are a necessity _before_ that can be attained. So
far as his work covers, a great deal has been done in this line by Mr.
A. P. Maudslay in the field of the inscriptions.
At the very outset therefore I must enter acknowledgment of the
assistance that I owe to the courtesy at that time of Prof. F. W.
Putnam, of Peabody Museum, and Mr. Chas. P. Bowditch, in placing, with a
freedom by no means universal among curators and researchers, their
material at my disposal, with privilege of copying. I am safe to say
that while I have reclassified the glyphs for my own use as my studies
went on, yet without the copy which by Mr. Bowditch's courtesy I was
allowed to make of his card index to the glyphs of the three codices, as
a start, this edition of the Perez Codex would not yet have reached
daylight through the many other occupations among which Maya studies
have had to take their chances.
At first it seemed possible to prepare a font of separate types for the
various elements of the compound glyphs we find in the texts; but after
having such a font made a number of years ago, and printing a couple of
pages of the Dresden Codex, the result was unsatisfactory; it became
evident that the proper Maya font of type must be both separate and
composite, as is used in Chinese, and not separate only as we have for
Egyptian. The type for the text cards of this edition have therefore
been made this way.
As to the colored plates of the Codex herewith, it is evident that
nothing whatever is gained by preserving the irregularities of the
defaced parts of the Codex, while everything is to be gained by making
all as clear and distinct as possible. The first step therefore was to
have a set of photographed enlargements of two diameters, made direct
from the 1864 issue. From these I made careful tracings, myself, of the
black figure and glyph lines of the original, making at the same time
the separate enlarged drawings from which the type were afterwards made.
At this first drawing only the evident, the indisputable parts were
drawn. The type forms were then classified, arranged in parallel
columns, and compared. All was then gone over, and new points settled on
the basis of the familiarity thus gained. It is a fair estimate to say
that this process of checking and verifying was gone through, first to
last, down to the final proof-reading of the printed sheets, some fifty
times.
One most important fact was established by this process, and must be
noted. In the Perez Codex at least, _nothing is to be taken for
granted_, nothing charged to a careless scribe, and no variants regarded
as being identical in value--with a very few exceptions, to which I
shall advert later. Wherever there remains enough of any glyph to show
its characteristic strokes, it can be regarded as safely indicated;
whenever the strokes are not just those characteristic of any glyph, it
cannot be inferred. Down to the very end of the various revisions I
found myself able to add glyphs which at first seemed hopeless, and yet
when once seen became clear and plain. Relying on the presence of the
photographs to check the work, I have thus added a very considerable
number to the glyphs at first apparent. In some cases, as in 6-b-11 and
17, and especially in 8-b-7, 8, 10, where glyphs were only partially
erased, but no other instances of perfect glyphs existed to compare them
with, I have let them alone, without attempting restoration. In short, I
may have made some errors of eye, but I have guessed nothing.
In a very few places I have restored glyphs totally erased, relying on
the parallelism of the passages. Such are some of the Ahau-numbers in
the upper sections of pages 2 to 11, and in the central sections on
those pages, the initial pairs of glyphs on pages 15 to 18-a, b, c, the
first columns of pages 19 and 20, and a few day-signs on pages 21, 23
and 24. These glyphs are all necessitated by their different series, and
hence can cause no confusions; while it seemed advantageous to have them
before the eye. A fair instance of the procedure is shown on page 3-b-1,
3. The temptation was strong to put the usual [Hieroglyph] glyph here as
on all the other pages, but the slight variation in the lines left of
glyph 3-b-3 forbade it.
The restoration will further be found a little bolder on the type-cards
than in the colored plates, where I have in general only endeavored to
reproduce what could be seen actually present. The glyphs restored on
the upper part of page 7 would seem hopeless at first sight; but they
are well-known and common forms, and the characteristic traces shown on
the photographs belong to these and to no others known.
* * * * *
The cards of type-printed text, in parallel columns for convenience of
study, are self-explanatory. Such an arrangement has from the first
seemed to me indispensable for proper study and comparison. The paging
of the de Rosny editions I have retained, except to change the
practically blank page 1 to be page 25, since to number this as 1 is
confusing. For the divisions and the numbering of the glyphs I have made
my own arrangement. It is possible that section _b_ on pages 2 to 11
should only go to the bottom line of the central figure, leaving section
_d_ to read clear across the page, and another section to be made to the
left of the nearly erased figures at the bottom; but the chances as
shown by the lining and arrangement of the columns seemed to favor it as
I have given it. Only final decipherment can decide definitely.