as been made
towards a better understanding of its type and of the nature of the
characters.

The direction in which it is to be read must of course be determined
before any progress can be made in deciphering it. This was, until
recently, a matter of speculation, but now may be considered settled. As
this has been explained[345-1] it is unnecessary to repeat that
explanation here.

A certain parallelism in the sentences or groups of characters has also
been discovered. Attention was first called to this by me in the work
referred to, but is more fully explained by Dr. P. Schellhas in his paper
entitled "Die Mayahandschrift der koeniglichen Bibliothek zu Dresden." It
will readily be understood from a single illustration. Take for example
the lower division of Plate XV of the Manuscript Troano (see Study Ms.
Troano). Omitting from consideration the numerals and the day column at
the left, there are here two short columns on the left and two on the
right over the animal figures, and three longer columns between. As
explained in the work referred to, the short columns are to be read as
lines from left to right and the longer columns separately, from the top
downward. There are, in all, five groups or sentences, each containing
four compound characters. Representing these by letters, repeating those
which indicate similar characters, and arranging as in the plate, the
result is as follows:

___________________________________________
| | | | | |
| _b_ _a_ | _h_ | _l_ | _m_ | _w_ _a_ |
| | | | | |
| _r_ _n_ | _a_ | _a_ | _a_ | _r_ _s_ |
|____________| | | |____________|
| _r_ | _r_ | _r_ |
| | | |
| _p_ | _k_ | _t_ |
|_____|_____|_____|

In this case the characters represented by _a_ and _r_ are repeated in
each group and in the same relation to the other characters. It is
apparent, therefore, that each group is to be read separately, and, as
each repeats in part what is given in the others, it is more than
probable that they are simply short formulas to be repeated in certain
religious ceremonies. This parallelism, though not always so apparent as
in the case presented, is nevertheless found running through all the
codices. The advantage to the attempts at decipherment which results from
this fact is evident, as it will often justify the rest