The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History. Hubert Howe Bancroft

bird perched upon an altar, and here, again, the human figures occupy the same position. The hieroglyphs, though the characters are of course different, are, it will be noticed, disposed upon the stone in much the same manner. The frontispiece of Stephens' Cent. Amer., vol. ii., described on p. 352, represents the tablet on the back wall of the altar, casa No. 3, at Palenque. Once more here are two priests clad in all the elaborate insignia of their office, standing one on either side of a table, or altar, upon which are erected two batons, crossed in such a manner as to form a crux decussata, and supporting a hideous mask. To this emblem they are each making an offering.

132

Delafield, it is true, discerns a distinct analogy between the hieroglyphs of Egypt and America. And the evidence he adduces is absurd enough. 'Hieroglyphic writings,' he says, 'are necessarily of three kinds, viz: phonetic, figurative, and symbolical.' He then goes on to show at great length, that both in Egypt and in America all three of these systems were used: hence, the resemblance. Antiq. Amer., pp. 42-7. 'Les monumens du Palenque présentent des inscriptions hiéroglyphiques qui ne paraissent pas différer des hiéroglyphes de l'ancienne Thèbes.' Giordan, Tehuantepec, p. 57. Jomard pronounces an inscription found at Grave Creek to be Lybian. Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., pp. 411-12. Says M'Culloh: 'The Game of the Flyers, we notice in this place, as M. Denon in the plates to his Travels in Egypt, has given the copy of some figures taken from the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which have every appearance of a similar design with this Mexican amusement or ceremony. – The similarity of device will be best seen, by comparing the plate given by Clavigero, with the (lxiii. plate) of Denon's Atlas, &c.' Researches on Amer., pp. 170-1. Priest, Amer. Antiq., p. 122, gives a comparative table of Lybian characters, and others, which he affirms to have been found at Otolum, or Palenque: the whole statement is, however, too apocryphal to be worthy of further notice. See, also, a long letter from Prof. Rafinesque to Champollion, 'on the Graphic Systems of America, and the Glyphs of Otolum, or Palenque, in Central America,' in Id., pp. 123-9. The hieroglyphics of Palenque and Tula encourage the idea that they were founded by an Egyptian colony. Juarros, Hist. Guat., p. 19.

133

In a letter by Jomard, quoted by Delafield, we read: 'I have also recognized in your memoir on the division of time among the Mexican nations, compared with those of Asia, some very striking analogies between the Toltec characters and institutions observed on the banks of the Nile. Among these analogies there is one which is worthy of attention. It is the use of the vague year of three hundred and sixty-five days, composed of equal months, and of five complementary days, equally employed at Thebes and Mexico, a distance of three thousand leagues. It is true that the Egyptians had no intercalation, while the Mexicans intercalated thirteen days every fifty-two years. Still farther: intercalation was proscribed in Egypt, to such a point that the kings swore, on their accession, never to permit it to be employed during their reign. Notwithstanding this difference, we find a very striking agreement in the length of the duration of the solar year. In reality, the intercalation of the Mexicans being thirteen days on each cycle of fifty-two years, comes to the same thing as that of the Julian calendar, which is one day in four years; and consequently supposes the duration of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five days, six hours. Now such was the length of the year among the Egyptians, since the sothic period was at once one thousand four hundred and sixty solar years, and one thousand four hundred and sixty-one vague years; which was, in some sort, the intercalation of a whole year of three hundred and seventy-five days every one thousand four hundred and sixty years. The property of the sothic period – that of bringing back the seasons and festivals to the same point of the year, after having made them pass successively through every point – is undoubtedly one of the reasons which caused the intercalation to be proscribed, no less than the repugnance of the Egyptians for foreign institutions. Now it is remarkable that the same solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, six hours, adopted by nations so different, and perhaps still more remote in their state of civilization than in their geographical distance, relates to a real astronomical period, and belongs peculiarly to the Egyptians… The fact of the intercalation (by the Mexicans) of thirteen days every cycle, that is, the use of a year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, is a proof that it was either borrowed from the Egyptians, or that they had a common origin.' Antiq. Amer., pp. 52-3. 'On the 26th of February, the Mexican century begins, which was celebrated from the time of Nabonassor, seven hundred and forty-seven years before Christ, because the Egyptian priests conformably to their astronomical observations had fixed the beginning of their month Toth and the commencement of their year at noon on that day; this was verified by the Meridian of Alexandria, which was erected three centuries after that epoch. Hence it has been contended there could exist no doubt of the conformity of the Mexican with the Egyptian calendar, for although the latter assigned twelve months of thirty days each to the year, and added five days besides, in order that the circle of three hundred and sixty-five days should recommence from the same point; yet, notwithstanding the deviation from the Egyptian mode in the division of the months and days, they yet maintained that the Mexican method was conformable thereto, on account of the superadded five days; with this only difference, that upon these the Americans attended to no business, and therefore termed them Nemontemi or useless, whereas the Egyptians celebrated, during that epoch, the festival of the birth of their gods, as attested by Plutarch de Feide, and Osiride. Upon the other hand it is asserted, that though the Mexicans differed from the Egyptians by dividing their year into eighteen months, yet, as they called the month Mextli Moon, they must have formerly adopted the lunar month, agreeable to the Egyptian method of dividing the year into twelve months of thirty days; but to support this assertion no attempt has been made to ascertain the cause why this method was laid aside. The analogy between the Mexican and the Egyptian calendars is thus assumed to be undeniable. Besides what has been here introduced, the same is attempted to be proved in many other works which I pass over to avoid prolixity, and therefore only mention that they may be found in Boturini, in La Idea del Universo, by the abbé don Lorenza de Hervas, published in the Italian language, in Clavigero's dissertations, and in a letter addressed to him by Hervas, which he added to the end of his second volume.' Cabrera, Teatro, in Rio's Description, pp. 103-5. See also: Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 344, 348; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., p. 20; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. vi., p. 295.

134

I follow, chiefly, M. Warden's résumé of these accounts, as being the fullest and clearest. Recherches, p. 406, et seq.

135

Hist. du Commerce, cap. viii.

136

Acosta compares the gold of Ophir with that of Hispaniola. He entertains the opinion that Tarshish and Ophir are distant imaginary places and not distinct countries, but imagines them to be somewhere in the East Indies. 'Cur autem in Orientali potius India quam in hac Occidentali Ophir fuisse existimem, illud caput est, quod ad nostrum Peru non nisi infinito circuitu tota India Orientali & Sinarum regione enauigata Salomonia clasis peruenire poterar.' De Novi Orbis, p. 36. Ophir is supposed to be in India or Africa. Robertson's Hist. Amer., vol. i., p. 7. Crowe, Cent. Amer., p. 65, considers the probability of Ophir and Tarshish being on the west coast of America. The Phœnician 'Ophir, or Ofor, which means, in their ancient language, the Western country, was Mexico and Central America, the land of gold.' Fontaine's How the World was Peopled, pp. 259-60. On p. 162, he says that the best authorities, Volney, Bochart, Michaelis, and Forster, suppose Ophir to have been situated on the Persian Gulf. The Phœnician Ophir was Hayti, for Columbus thought that he could trace the furnaces in which the gold had been refined. Carver's Trav., p. 192. Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 184-5, considers the position of Ophir, but is undecided as to its position. Ens, West und Ost Indischer Lustgart, pp. 5-8, disagreeing with Vatablus and Stephanus, can find no resemblance to Ophir in Hayti or Peru, and comes to the conclusion that Ophir lay somewhere in the Old