#maya epigraphy

[aerial-jace]

Hey there y'all, if any of you have ever wanted to learn to read Maya glyphs, you're in luck! I'm in the process of compiling a personal study flashcard deck as a note-taking strategy and I thought I might as well share. So far I've only got about half of the Maya syllabary, which I'm aware there's another shared deck for that on Anki web already, but my plans for this one involve much more than just that. I plan on adding logograms for common nouns and verbs, calendaric glyphs, royal titles, perhaps even some translation exercises covering tricky topics in Maya grammar such as using Set A and Set B pronouns or formulaic inscriptions such as the Primary Standard Sequence. Anyway, if any of that sounds interesting, consider downloading!

[messoamerica]

Saturday glyph practice.

[messoamerica]

ArchaeoLit: Maya Personal References

Fun fact: teaching three university courses and applying for Ph.D. programs while working two other jobs is fairly exhausting. Thank goodness we get a day off to commemorate the murderous rampage of a white man who literally accomplished nothing he set out to. While you’re enjoying the break, here’s an interesting epigraphic article about the use of first and second person reference in Maya glyphs.

The interpretation of deixis in language is heavily context-dependent. In spoken language, the addressee(s) have the context of an utterance to aid in its interpretation. In writing, however, language can become separated from both its creator and the context of its creation. This article investigates the use of certain deictics—first and second person markers—in ancient Maya hieroglyphics (circa AD 250–900). The temporal and cultural gap that separates modern language scholars from the creators of these texts means that much of the larger cultural context in which these texts would have been interpreted has been lost. An analysis of the way in which first and second person reference was framed and deployed in Maya hieroglyphs, even when identifying the intended referent proves impossible, provides insights concerning how people recontextualize textual language and how the authors of these texts adapted the form of their messages in response to the modality used.

While “Reading in Context: The Interpretation of Personal Reference in Ancient MayaHieroglyphic Texts” by Law et al. is fairly detailed in it’s epigraphic information, it also touches on the relationship between a text and its reader and may still be a fun read for those of you not very interested in epigraphy. Read the full article here!

[messoamerica]

Maya limestone stela, Pusilha, Belize AD 600 - 800

[messoamerica]

Jadeite mask featuring series of carved glyphs, Comayagua, Honduras AD 600 - 800

The wearing of portrait heads suspended from waist belts or adorning headdresses was the prerogative of members of the ruling lineage. Although this head was found near Copan, it bears an inscription on its reverse naming a lord from Palenque. It has been suggested that since the mother of Yax-Pac, the last king of Copan, was from Palenque, it is possible that she brought the belt to Copan at the time of her marriage.

[messoamerica]

Interpreting Maya myths through art: Q&A with Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos

The “old goddess” is a paradoxical character in Maya mythology. She is the grandmother who raised the infant gods, but in most accounts, she hated them, and finally tried to kill them. Despite her significance, she rarely appears in ancient Maya art.

“We find her portraits here and there, but she is not a favorite,” said Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, assistant professor of anthropology at Yale. “Still, her depictions are consistent with descriptions of old goddesses as patrons of childbirth, midwifery, and the sweat bath — a facility that is still used for pre- and post-partum treatments in Maya communities. Understanding the old goddess is key to understanding Maya mythology.”

[messoamerica]

ArchaeoLit: 00000000

If I was going to rank my research interests, I would probably put the representation and transmission of knowledge at the very top. How do we construct knowledge? How does knowledge change over time? How do we understand alternative forms of knowledge? “Numerical cognition and the development of ‘zero’ in Mesoamerica” by John Justeson dives straight into this by exploring the concept of zero and it’s development in Mesoamerica. An excerpt:

Cognition is a system consisting of representations of knowledge together with the processes that operate on those representations. What is fundamental to numerical cognition is the representation of knowledge about numbers and numeration, and the operations that are peformed on them. This section explores fetures of numeral systems that relate to several different perspectives on these matters within cognitive and linguistic anthropology. It begins with a selection from Greenberg’s (1987) findings on cross-linguistic regularities in the structure of numeral systems in spoken languages.

If you’re willing to take the plunge into this jumble of Maya glyphs, mathematics, and linguistic theory, check out the article here.