File: <Maya
Script.htm> Archeology Index <Bronze Age Index> <American Archeology>
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Decipherment of The Maya Script Foundation
for Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (Contact)
Once considered an unsolvable enigma, recent advances in the
decipherment of the Maya writing system has not only shed light on the
mechanics of the script, but also on the socio-political, artistic, and
historical aspects of Maya civilization. As
a whole, the Maya people created the longest lasting civilization of the New
World. It became distinguishable from other early farming cultures of Mesoamerica
in the middle of the first millenium BCE, when the first great Maya cities
were constructed. Their culture endured through changes, wars, and disasters
until it was suppressed by the Spanish conquest in the 16th and 17th
centuries. The last indepedent Maya kingdom of Tayasal, fell as late as 1697.
However, the Maya survived and there is estimated to be at least one million
Mayas living in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras today.
The Maya hieroglypic writing is arguably one of the most visually
striking writing systems of the world. It is also very complex, with hundreds
of unique signs or glyphs in
the form of humans, animals, supernaturals, objects, and abstract designs.
These signs are either logograms (to express meaning) or syllabograms (to
denote sound values), and are used to write words, phrases, and sentences. In
fact, the Maya can write anything that they can say.
While we're on the subject of what the Maya could "say",
let's talk about Maya languages. The "Maya" in general were
actually not a single people but many nations with different, but related,
cultures, religions, and languages. Of the many Maya languages, only two
(possibly three) were written down with the hieroglyphic system. It is
thought that speakers of the Ch'olan language, and possibly also those of the
Tzeltalan language, were the inventors of the Maya writing system. Another
group, the speakers of Yucatec, adopted the script to write their own language.
However, in some places, both languages were represented on hieroglyphic
inscriptions, which not only stumped archaeologists for many years but also
offered tantalizing clues into how Maya languages have interacted.
The visual construction of Maya glyphs is very interesting. At first
inspection, the glyphs appear to be very intricate squares laid out in a
gridlike pattern. In fact, each square is a glyph block that actually contain
one to five glyphs, often forming a word or even a phrase.
The order to read Maya glyphs is also not as straightforward as it
would seem. Since glyph blocks are arranged in a grid, one would think that
the reading order is either in rows or columns. In reality, Maya glyphs are
read in "paired columns", meaning that the first glyph block is on
the top left, the second is immediately to the right of the first, the third
is under the first, the fourth under the second, and so forth. This yields a
zigzagging reading order. When you arrive at the bottom of this "paired
column", you will then go back up to the top and start the next paired
column. In fact, scholars label glyph block horizontally with letters (A, B,
C) and vertically with numbers (1, 2, 3). Hence, the reading order would be
A1, B1, A2, B2, etc, until you hit the bottom. Then you start at C1, D1, C2,
D2, etc.
There were several classes of glyphs in the Maya writing system. The
first class is the numeric glyphs. Like us, the Maya wrote their numbers in
positional notation. This mouthful of words means that the position of a
"digit" dictates its actual numerical value. For example, the digit
"7" means seven if its position is at the end of a number, but if
it is one position before the end, then it stands for seventy. And if it is
two positions before the end, then it is seven hundred. Mathematically, you
will see that digit is multiplied by the "base" of 10 raised to the
position of the digit:
Likewise, among the Maya, the position of a "digit" also
determines the actual value of the digit. However, unlike our system, which
is based on powers of 10, the Maya (and Mesoamericans in general) used powers
of 20. Also, unlike our system, which has an individual symbol for each digit
(0, 1, 2, 3, ...), the Maya only employed three basic symbols: A dot for a
value of "one", a bar for a value of "five", and a shell
for the value "zero". Arithmetic combinations of these yield
"digits" from zero to nineteen. For example, four is represented as
four dots, seven is a bar and two dots, and nineteen is three bars and four
dots as
Closely
allied to the number system of the Maya is their incredibly intricate
calendar system. The Maya time-keeping involved several interlocking cycles,
some of which tracked astronomical events while others seemingly followed
abstract time intervals. Similar to other
Mesoamerican cultures, the Maya employed a 365-day solar calendar (jaab') and a 260-day ritual cycle (tzolk'in). The jaab' is divided into 18
"months" of 20 days, plus 5 "unlucky" days at the end
called wayeb'. The following
chart illustrates the signs of jaab'
solar calendar.
Like the Western calendar, numbers identify the days in a
month, but the first day of the month is zero instead of one as in the
Western calendar. So for example, the first day of the month Pop is 0 Pop,
although in writing the "zero" is written with the glyph that means
"seating" rather than the conch shell. Therefore, the first day of
the month is metaphorically called the "seating of" the month. The second cycle, the tzolk'in, is not divided into months but
contains two parallel cycles, one of 13 and the other of 20. The cycle of 13
are identified by numbers, but the cycle of 20 has days with names. And the following are the signs of the tzolk'in ritual cycle.
The keeping
of the tzolk'in is still
practiced among modern Maya, especially by Maya nations of highland Guatemala
such as the Quiché or the Kakchiquel. The practioners are called
"daykeepers", are open to both genders, and they also serve
functions such as diviners, midwives, and bonesetters. The Maya also
combined jaab' and tzolk'in into a single 52-year cycle
called the Calendar Round. By running the two cycles in parallel, a date such
as 12 Chikchan 18 Sak will not be come around again for exactly 52 years.
Mathematically, this can be computed by finding the least common multiple
(the smallest number divisible by both 260 and 365), which happens to be
18980 days or 52 years. The Calendar
Round was widespread not only among the Maya but also among other
Mesoamerican cultures too like #a @aztec#, #a @mixtec#, and #a @zapotec#. At a level
even greater than the Calendar Round is the Long Count, an immensely long
system of five increasingly larger cycles that ultimately measures a time
period of over 5,000 years. Like the modern Western calendar which uses three
numbers to denote three time units (year, month, and day), the Long Count
used five numbers to represent five time units. The smallest unit of the Long
Count is a day, called k'in.
The passage of twenty k'ins
(days) makes up one winal, the
next higher unit. Eighteen winals
yields one tun, which is 360
days, thus roughly equal to one year. Twenty tuns
makes up one k'atun, which is
about 19 years and 8 months. And finally, the largest conventional unit is
the baktun, which is twenty k'atuns, 400 tuns, or about 394 years and 6 months. It appears that the
maximum number that the baktuns
unit can arrive is thirteen. Unlike the modern calendar, the smallest number
for an unit is not one (such as 1/1 or 1st of January) but zero instead. In
other words, a k'in starts at 0
and increments as high as 19 before going back to 0 again. For
convenience, instead of writing each number and unit name in a Long Count
date, archaeologists have devised a system of writing just the numbers
separated by dots starting with the largest unit. For example, 9 baktun, 3 k'atun, 17 tun,
8 winal, and 11 k'in is written as 9.3.17.8.11. The presence
of the Long Count on ancient monuments has helped archaeologists date them to
our calendar (which is called the Gregorian Calendar). This was made possible
by the computation of the correlation
between the Long Count and the Gregorian calendar. While many different
correlations exist, the most accepted one states that the Long Count date
0.0.0.0.0 was the Gregorian date August 11, 3114 BCE. The Long
Count is always accompanied by the Calendar Round (both tzolk'in and jaab)
when identifying a date on a monument. Sometimes other astronomical cycles
such as the Lunar Cycle and the Venus Cycle are also included in the block of
dates. Because these dates always appear at the beginning of an inscription,
together these dates are called the Initial Series. Because of the
mathematical consistencies between these different cycles, often it is
possible to reconstruct any missing date using the remaining ones. The Maya
writing system had an extensive set of phonetic signs that represented
syllables rather than individual sounds like in alphabetic systems. The
following is a subset of signs in the syllabary:
Note that Roman transliteration of Maya
consonants follows 16th century Spanish orthography. This means that the
letter "j" is pronounced like a rough /h/. The letter "x"
represents the sound /&\#x0161;/ (like the "sh" in "ship").
And the combination "tz" is the sound /ts/ like in "catsup". The
consonants followed by apostrophes are the "glottalized" versions
of the plain consonants. A glottalized consonant is pronounced like a normal
consonant, but immediately before the vowel is pronounced, the larynx is
constricted (as if to pronounce a glottal stop) to produce a somewhat
explosive sound. The syllabic
structure of the Maya language allows an ending consonant in a syllable. In
fact, the "root" or most basic form of Maya words consists of a
consonant, a vowel, and a consonant (CVC). In order to "spell" a
word of this form, the Maya scribes used two syllabic signs. The first sign
contains the beginning consonant and the vowel of the syllable. The second
sign represents the ending consonant, and the vowel of this second sign is
omitted by convention during reading. Most frequently the vowel of the second
sign is equal to the vowel of the first sign. This is called the rule of
synharmony by epigraphers. In Maya
languages, vowels can also be complex, meaning that they can be long,
glottalized (followed a glottal stop), or aspirated (followed by the /h/
sound). To represent these complex vowels, the rule of disharmony is applied
where the second sign representing the ending consonant contains a vowel that
is dissimilar to the vowel in the first sign. For example, the word baak ('captive') is spelled as ba-ki
where the "i" is omitted from the reading but tells us that the
"a" in ba is complex. In the
following example, the top row illustrates the principle of synharmony,
whereas the bottom row illustrates the principle of disharmony.
In addition to syllabic signs, the Maya
script also has a large number of logograms, signs that represent words or
morphemes (basic units of meaning) in the language instead of sounds. The
following are a few of the logograms.
With such a
rich inventory of signs, both logographic and syllabic, the ancient Maya
scribe combined them in bewildering ways for both functional and aesthetic
purposes. Scribes could and did write the same word in multiple ways.
Sometimes only logograms were used. Other times just phonetic signs were
employed. And sometimes logograms are accompanied by phonetic complements,
phonetic signs that serve to clarify the reading of the logogram by either
spelling out the beginning or ending sound of the word. In the following
example, you see two words, namely pakal
'shield' and witz 'mountain'
spelled in several different ways, purely logographic, logographic with
phonetic complements, and purely phonetic. Also notice how the phonetic
complements can occur before the logogram (such as wi-WITZ) and after it (as
in PAKAL-l(a)).
One reason
for the use of phonetic complements is that a sign can have multiple
functions, a phenomenon called polyvalency. For example, there were two words
for 'jaguar' in Maya, namely balam
and jix, but the same logogram
is used for both. To remove ambiguity, when the logogram is meant to be read
as balam, either the phonetic
sign ba is placed in front of it or ma is placed after it. In contrast, ji is
placed before the logogram if it is meant to be read as jix. It is also
possible that a glyph can function as both logogram and phonetic sign. For
instance, the phonetic sign ku is also the logogram TUUN and the calendrical
sign for the tzolk'in day
Kawak. In this case, the logogram TUUN is usually followed by the phonetic
complement ni to indicate its reading. The Kawak sign would also be easily
distinguished because of numeric sign before it and its location in a
Calendar Round or Long Count block.
Also note that the rules of synharmony
and disharmony also apply to phonetic complements. If the logogram's vowel is
short, then the rule of synharmony is used (such as BALAM-m(a)), but if the
vowel is long or aspirated, then the rule of disharmony is used (as in TUUN-n(i)).
Phonetic
signs are also combined with logograms to write prefixes and suffixes that
conjugate or derive new words from the original roots represented by
logograms. Most often suffixes are used with verbs to denote different
persons, numbers, tenses, and other verbal aspects.
Of course, verbs can also be written
completely phonetically, as illustrated in the following example:
In essence,
the number of ways signs can be combined in Maya writing is absolutely
staggering, which ancient scribes exploited for aesthetics and personal whim
as much as tradition and convention. The prevalent
thought about the origin of Maya writing is that it grew out of an even more
ancient writing system developed by the Olmecs as early as 1000 BCE, at a
time period called the Preclassic by archaeologists. Only fragmentary
evidence for this writing system existed until the announcement in 2006 of
the existence of the Cascajal block, a small rectangular tablet inscribed
with 62 symbols resembling symbols found in Olmec art but otherwise
undecipherable. You can read more about it at National Geographic
or Mesoweb. However, the writing system of
the Cascajal block is very different from that of the Maya, and it is
impossible to say if it had any influence on Maya writing at all. Regardless of
when the Maya started to write, the earliest examples of Maya writing date
from the Late Preclassic period (300 BCE to 300 CE). In the past, many of
these early texts were found on portable objects that have been looted from
their archaeological context, and therefore they cannot be dated using
radiocarbon dating or other types of physical dating technique. Instead,
their age were hypothesized purely on comparing the artistic style of the
objects to archaeologically excavated artefacts. This
situation changed recently by major discoveries at the site of San Bartolo,
which yielded exquisitely painted murals as well as some of the earliest Maya
texts found in their archaeological context. The texts associated with the famous
murals date to about 100 BCE, whereas another piece of text, found in another
part of the city, date to 300 BCE, making it the oldest securely dated Maya
text and one of the earliest texts in Mesoamerica in general. The 300 BCE
text can be seen here. The San
Bartolo texts cannot be read because they are quite different from later Maya
glyphs (after 250 CE). This is true in general for all Preclassic Maya
writing. Even though it is most certainly the same writing system, many of
the signs look different and not even the most experienced epigrapher can
make much sense of them.
Like later monuments,
the theme of this mask is political power. While no dates are inscribed, and
most of the glyphs undeciphered, what can be interpreted suggests that the
mask records the accession of a ruler by the name of Chan Muan, which is most
prominently inscribed to the right of the ruler's figure. These two same
glyphs appear again in the text cells C2 and D2, and also conflagrated or merged into a single
glyph in cell B6. The glyph in A5 appears to be the lower body and thighs of
a sitting man, which in later Maya writing signified
"enthronement". So, taking together, the phrase consisting of A5,
B5, A6, and B6 together appears to approximately the ascension of Chan Muan
to kingship in an unidentified city. You can also find more information about
the beginning of Maya writing in #a @ma_ws#. The Decipherment of Maya Hieroglyphs The story
really started with Bishop Diego de Landa, who avidly committed to destroy
every Maya book that he could find. Ironically, though, when he was composing
his Relación de las cosas de Yucatán,
he included a very sketchy and rather erroneous "summary" of Maya
hieroglyphics. Apparently, he assumed that Mayas wrote with an alphabet, and
so he asked his native informants on how to write "a",
"b", "c", and so forth, in Maya. The Mayas, on the other
hand, heard the syllables "ah", "beh", "seh"
(as "a", "b" and "c" would be pronounced in
Spanish), and so forth, and naturally gave the glyphs with these phonetic
values. So, in a sense, Landa recorded a very small section of the Maya
syllabary, and the Mayanist equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.
In a sense,
for all Landa did to destroy any traces of Maya writing, he also unwittingly
preserved for us the key to rediscovery and decipherment. He, therefore,
defeated himself. One point for knowledge and zero for ignorance. The next step
came really when the Maya civilization was rediscovered by John Lloyd
Stephens and his talented artist companion Frederick Catherwood in the mid
19th century. Not only were their books bestsellers but also the drawings in
them were (and still are) extremely accurate. No doubt Sir
Eric Thompson is one of the greatest Mayanist ever lived. Among his greatest
contribution to the field was a systematic catalog of all Maya hieroglyphs.
He divided the glyphs into three sets, affixes,
main signs, and portraits. The affixes are usually the
little squished glyphs while the main signs are usually somewhat square in
shape. The portraits are usually heads of humans, gods, or animals, and
usually can appear as either affixes or main signs. Thompson gave each one a
number, the lowest number going to the most frequent glyph to appear on
texts, and higher numbers for less frequent signs. Affixes start at 1 and
stops at 500. Main signs go from 501 to 999. And Portraits from 1000 up. You
can take a lot at this cataloging by going to Maya Epigraphic Database. However,
Thompson was set in his mind that Maya hieroglyphs were
"ideographic", which literally means that each glyph expresses an
abstract idea in the human mind. These ideograms were, according to him, the
main signs, while the affixes were modifiers of the ideogram (like numbers,
verbal endings, plurals, etc). As for phoneticism, he thought that rebus was
the major way for the Maya to "spell" something. He considered the
Landa's "alphabet" completely wrong. On the other
side of the coin was Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov, who advocated phoneticisms,
and saw the key in Landa's work. He was not the first to advocate a phonetic
approach to Maya glyphs, though. The great linguist Benjamin Whorf had also
tried to "read" Maya glyphs earlier without success, because he
took Landa's alphabet as if it really was an alphabet. What set Knorozov
apart was that he realized Landa's alphabet was really part of the Maya
syllabary, and he succeeded in identifying many of the syllabic glyphs. As for the
content of the texts, Thompson strongly argued for esoteric knowledge like
astrology and pointless mathematics. This view was derived from his opinion
that the Maya were peaceful astronomy priests. However, evidence soon emerged
that the texts recorded something other than Maya science. The
German-Mexican Heinrich Berlin identified a set of glyphs with similar
affixes but different main signs. Each of these glyphs appear most frequently
in one site, so it is quite possible to assume that each glyph identifies a
site. He called these "Emblem Glyphs". But perhaps
the greatest advance was made by Tatiana Proskouriakoff, who took a logical
approach to monuments and texts on them. She noticed that stelas come in
groups. Many of the recorded dates in a group do not seem to apply to any
religious or astronomical events. In fact, the dates on these monuments fit
with that of a person's life time. Proskouriakoff therefore theorized that at
least some of Classic Maya texts recorded the lifetime of a ruler. Once the
historical approach is opened, myriad of glyphs were identified with events
in life, such as birth, accession, death, and so on. In the early seventies,
it became possible for the first time to work out dynastic lists of rulers in
particular sites. From around the same time, Knorozov's phoneticism became
more widely accepted, and further advances in deciphering syllabic signs
continued. With these major tools of decipherment in hand, Maya texts started
to come to light for the past 20 years. New discoveries continue to come to
light, and any paper published six months ago might already be obsolete. |
