Location of some scripts Week 4.pdf62 distinct signs, some of them repeated. It conforms to all...
Transcript of Location of some scripts Week 4.pdf62 distinct signs, some of them repeated. It conforms to all...
Location of some scripts
Meso-American scriptsHypothetical Family
treeS.R. Fischer,2001
Olmec 1500-400 BCE
Maya pre-classic 2000 BCE-100 CEMaya classic 100-600 CEMaya post classic >900 CEAztec 1200-1500 CE
Zapotec 700 BCE–1521 CE
Site of Olmec civilization stone found In Vera Cruz, Mexico
Road builders in southern Mexico discovered a script-covered block of stone among the rubble in a gravel quarry in 1999. A research team has now announced that the marks on the slab represent the oldest writing yet discovered in the Americas ~900 BCE
3,000 BP script on stone found in Mexico.Unknown writing system oldest found in New World
The stone block inscribed with patterned images that was found in Cascajal, near Veracruz, Mexico, contains 62 distinct signs, some of them repeated. It conforms to all expectations of writing. A signary (list of signs or symbols) with 28 distinct elements, each a codified glyphic entity, a few in repeated, short, isolable sequences. A consistent reading order.
Cascajal Block:Olmec marks ~ 900 BCE
Oldest Meso-Americanwriting 62 glyphs still undeciph-ered
Epigraphic drawing of block and frequency of signs
Olmec imagery consistently displays vegetal icons, which sprout to the top, indicating that the script is horizontal.
Mayan limestone stele112 square glyphs (logograms and
syllabic markers that help with pronunciation) from Pusilha, Belize
British Museum, London
Text it bears has not been entirely deciphered (which is not unusual for Mayan text), but we know that it relates to the reign of the Ruler K’ak’ Uti’ Chan, and that it tells us of his lineage, his rise to power, and some of the historically significant events during his reign (including warfare).
Oldest writing in Western hemisphere
Diego de Landa Calderón Bishop of Yucatán
1524 – 1579Obtained valuable information on pre-Columbian Maya writing
as Inquisitor he also destroyed much of their culture and codices in his zeal to wipe out idolatry.His version of a Mayan �alphabet� (above right) was wrong, he had never encountered syllabic writing, but helped later decipherment.
Dresden Codex
pre-Columbian Maya book of 11-12th century CE of the Maya in Chichén Itzá, contains astronomical tables of outstanding accuracy.
See pp. 128-9 Robinson
Grolier Codex ~1021-1154 CE Pre-Columbian
Michael Coe Yale anthropologist
deciphered Mayan scripts
Found in cave, painted on fig-bark paper, Venus almanacDepicts death god with a victim, pages badly damaged by moisture, used hematite red, black & blue-green. Bar dot
Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson 1898- 1975English archeologist and Mayanistepigrapher, regarded as the pre-eminent mid-20th century scholar of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization.He deciphered Maya hieroglyphics related to the calendar
and astronomy, as well as identifying some new nouns. He developed a numerical cataloguing system for the glyphs (T-number system). His attempted decipherments were based on ideographic rather than linguistic principles. In his later years he resisted the notion that the glyphs have a strong phonetic component.
Deciphering Ancient Scripts
Script Year Person
Hieroglyphs 1823 Young
Champollion
Cuneiform 1838 Grotefend
Rawlinson
Linear B 1953 Ventris
Phaistos signs Undeciphered
Maya Glyphs 1952 Knorosov et al.
Yuri Knorosov
Breaking the Mayan code
Temple of InscriptionsPalenque, Mexico discovered 1952
Tomb of King Pacal and jade mosaic funerary mask found in crypt
See pp. 138-9 Robinson
David Stuart PhDProfessor of Art History University of Texas Austin, MacArthur awardee at age 18, epigrapher, Mayan scholar
Linda Schele
TatianaProskouriakoff
Main Mayan language & archeological sites
p. 122Robinson
Five possible spellings of Balam (jaguar)Ranging from top left glyph wholly logographic to bottom right glyph - a compound of three phoneticsigns - is wholly phonetic
Mayan writing is a phonetic one whose glyphs denote entire words and whose component signs convey syllabic sounds, usually c+v
Mayan writing uses four types of signsLogographsound and meaning of the whole word e.g. glyph balam for tiger
Rebusconveys sound of one word by using another word that shares that sound (rare)
Phonetic complement conveys the desired pronunciation
Semantic determinative denoted which of several potential meanings to read e.g. the day glyph for a date
Mayan Hieroglyphs:deciphering a lost language
In 1999 archeologists discovered a small altar-like platform in Palenque, Mexico that was covered in Mayan hieroglyphics. Researchers have now decoded much of the ancient writing which dates back to 100 BCE
MayanGlyphs
Translating Mayan glyphs
Palenque ruler
K�anJotChitam I
13 years
The God GI�Good One�
And two years later
Maya Chocolate Cupceramic vessel from Rio Azul, Guatemala
In CholanMaya uchi’i
means to drink
CacaoConfirmed
by chemical anayses of scrapings
See p.143Robinson
Meso-American Scripts 500 BCE to 1697 CE
Meso-American numbering systems
• Upper: Bar and dot system for numbers 1-19• Lower: Aztec signs for numbers 20, 400 and 8000
Mayan SyllabaryNot every glyphic position is universally agreed.~ 85% of glyphs can be read.
Mayan glyphs: Naj tunich cave
Early Maya Glyphs, Guatemala
A column of 10 glyphic words, uncovered in ruins in Guatemala, is unreadable even by the most expert scholars.
Clear evidence that the Maya were writing more than 2,300 years ago.The Zapotec, who lived around Oaxaca, Mexico, appear to have led the way to literacy, at least by 400 B.C.E.It is generally agreed that the primal writing by contemporary groups in Mesoamerica was one of just four scripts - Sumerian, Egyptian and Chinese are the others - to be invented independent of outside influences.
Maya Glyphs, Guatemala
The Maya glyphs were painted in black on white plaster. A scribe apparently drew the characters along a subtle pinkish-orange stripe as a guideline.Scholars were able to decipher just one symbol, the one meaning "ruler" or "lord" or possibly anyone of noble status. The exact meaning of the other nine glyphs will probably remain obscure until additional and longer texts are found from the same time in Mayan history.
discovered at San Bartolo, in northeastern Guatemala, radiocarbon dated 300 BCE.
Mayan glyph block