man's curl, recognized on the figured illustrations.
One is a face with the banded headdress. Remembering that this headdress
occurs not infrequently on a plain human face with no other
characteristic, it is not a far guess that it may have denoted a
freeman, a lord, entitled to such a headdress. In this event it may on
the one hand serve as a simple masculine definitive, the prefix _ah-_,
and on the other, to attach the idea of lordship to other glyphs with
which it is incorporated, as: the North Star, or region, the Lord of the
Firmament.

This illustration serves to show what seems to me an essential
preliminary of the work we have in hand, and the part to which I have so
far devoted most effort. The glyphs must be determined, compared and
classified, and what I have called the "syntax" of their composition,
studied. The particles and their positions, the various _incorporated_
elements, are of the utmost importance, though they are very frequently
ignored. _They are the written picture of the spirit of the spoken
language._ The task I have most looked forward to in this connexion has
of course been with the Dresden, but having started upon the Perez for
the reasons I have given, it was a smaller task in itself, and could be
brought to completion within less time, while serving as part of the
larger work. As the determination and classification of the glyphs had
to proceed all as one work, it has enabled me not only to complete my
Index for this codex, but also to print the text in type, and to verify
and bring out such facts regarding the color questions as was possible
to do--both of them stages needed in the general work. In doing it I
have studied with my hands as well as with eyes, and I have been well
repaid. The actual labor has not been small, but it has been worth it
all if only to see before the eyes something of what this Codex must
have been when fresh and new. For as I have said, while in my colored
restoration I may have made some mistakes of eye, for which the
photographs will be a check, I have _guessed_ nothing.

The classification of the glyphs meets of course with some difficulties
in detail, but it can readily be cast into a quite simple general
outline. Something over 2000 different compound forms are found in the
three codices. The simple elements composing these are perhaps 350 in
number, and may be divided broadly into main elements and affixes or
particles. First of course come day and month