arkable faithfulness of the
artists and sculptors of these statues and inscriptions to a standard.
Thus, at Copan, wherever the same kind of hieroglyph is to be
represented, it will be found that the human face or other object
employed is almost identically the same in expression and character,
wherever it is found. The same characters at different parts of a tablet
do not differ more than the same letters of the alphabet in two fonts of
type.

At Palenque the _type_ (font) changes, but the adherence to this is
equally or almost equally rigid. It is to be presumed that in this
latter case, where work was done both in stone and stucco, the nature
of the material affected the portraiture more or less.

The stone statues at Copan, for example, could not all have been done by
the same artist, nor at the same time. I have elsewhere shown that two
of these statues are absolutely identical. How was this accomplished?
Was one stone taken to the foot of the other and cut by it as a pattern?
This is unlikely, especially as in the case mentioned the _scale_ of the
two statues is quite different. I think it far more likely that each was
cut from a drawing, or series of drawings, which must have been
preserved by priestly authority. The work at any one place must have
required many years, and could not have been done by a single man; nor
is it probable that it was all done in one generation. Separate
hieroglyphs must have been preserved in the same way. It is this rigid
adherence to a type, and the banishment of artistic fancy, which will
allow of progress in the deciphering of the inscriptions or the
comparison of the statues. Line after line, ornament after ornament, is
repeated with utter fidelity. The reason of this is not far to seek.
This, however, is not the place to explain it, but rather to take
advantage of the fact itself. We may fairly say that were it not so, and
with our present data, all advances would be tenfold more difficult.

III.

SYSTEM OF NOMENCLATURE.

It is impossible without a special and expensive font of type to refer
pictorially to each character, and therefore some system of nomenclature
must be adopted. The one I employ I could now slightly improve, but it
has been used and results have been obtained by it. It is sufficient for
the purpose, and I will, therefore, retain it rather than to run the
risk of errors by changing it to a more perfect system. I have numbered
the plates in STEPHENS'