6-the glyphs of the maya- draft 1
TRANSCRIPT
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Colin Kovacic
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The ancient Maya were inhabitants of the modern-day Yucatan Peninsula
They reached their height between 200 and 900 AD
During this time they developed one of the mostsophisticated writing systems in the New World
First, a history lesson
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The Maya utilized a system many compare to the
hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt (thus they are said to have ahieroglyphic writing system)
While the Maya did use pictures in their writing thesystem itself varied greatly from that of the Egyptians, asis made obvious in this comparison
The Writing System
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When written out as plain text the glyphs of the Maya were
square or rectangular in shape
They were most often written in columns two glyphs wide,read from left to right and top to bottom (see picture)
The first glyph, called the initial, often took up the entirefirst and second rows of the double column, making it fourtimes bigger than normal
The succeeding glyphs were also sometimes twice as wideas a normal glyph, though not twice as tall
From then on the glyphs would be written as normal
The Glyphs
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Hieroglyphic texts can be found carved into thegreat Maya temples, palaces, and observatories
These often recounted Maya mythologies, providedimportant dates in the complex Maya calendar, kepttrack of Maya astrology, and recorded the births,deaths, and coronations of Mayan kings
The Texts
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Although not widely known, the majority of Maya
inscriptions are actually found on pottery
These clay codices are so prevalent because they survived theburning of other paper and wood codices by Spanishmissionaries
At one time the codex, folded sheets of bark paper filled with
painted glyphs and artwork, may have been the mostcommon hieroglyphic record. Since their burning, however,only three genuine examples remain.
Other Texts
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Maya glyphs were not just used as a writing system, theywere also incorporated into Maya art
For example, in carvings the name of a King may beintertwined within his clothing or what may look likedecoration surrounding a god may actually be a stylizedglyph that describes some aspect of his personality or
purpose
In Art
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The Maya had a VERY complicated calendar system, in
fact, there were multiple ways to express one date
The long count used cycles of time to measure the timesince a specific point thousands of years in the past (theymythological beginning of the Maya)
The other main calendar was the Calendar Round. This
was a combination of a 260 day lunar year, called theTzolkin and a 365 day solar year called the Haab. Theround measured dates in 52-year cycles.
You said something about
a calendar?
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The reason this dating system is so important is
because the first ten or so glyphs of an inscriptioncan all be date glyphs!
Decoding the glyphs for Maya dates was the firststep to cracking the entire system
Dates and Glyphs
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The hieroglyphic text was highly valued by the Maya
Some glyphs were logograms, glyphs that were meant to be readliterally (i.e. a glyph that looked like a skull meant skull)
Others were phonetic, meaning that the glyph represented asound; sometimes glyphs could be interpreted either way
The point is, the Maya had enough simple phonetic glyphs towrite without the logograms, which were complicated and tooktime to write.
For reasons not entirely known, the Maya chose not to give uptheir hieroglyphic writing style. Clearly their system was notsimply a means to record ideas but also a complex extension oftheir beliefs and culture.
Another Thing
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You cant always expect Maya inscriptions to agreewith one another
In fact, oftentimes they outright dont make senseOne has to understand that there was no distinction
between history and myth for the Maya. What waswritten was truth, so the king might alter, for
example, his coronation date in order for it tocoincide with a luckier day or so that he might takecredit for the military conquests of a former ruler
And one last thing
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So the question is: How might the Maya writingsystem be understood in modern terms?
Understanding the glyphs in this context can help usunderstand their original use and allow us to relateto an otherwise distant culture.
In a modern context
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One thing the Maya saw fit to record was a royalascension
Well use the ascension of a modern ruler as aparallel: President Obama
A Modern inscription
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Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2008 Keeping with the Maya specificity in
regards to dates, well list the date as the
number of millenniums, centuries, years,months, weeks, and days since a certainpoint in history. For us, that would be thebirth of Christ
The initial would represent that event, sothe glyph could look something like this:
The figure, Jesus, flanked by celestialbodies and crowned with a halo andwings to represent his heavenly origins.Underneath is the Maya symbol for zero(his age at birth)
Step One: The Date
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While the Maya used
representative gods as year,month, and day symbols, were
going to use more recognizableemblems For millennium: a stylized
roman numeral M (1000 years) For century: a lion and fleur-
de-lis representative of the 100
Years War fought betweenEngland and France For year: The earth completing
its orbit around the sun (withsymbols for spring andsummer to clarify the timespan)
Dates cont.
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For month: a moon
encircling the glyph forblack, indicating a newmoon, a complete lunarcycle (months areconstructed based onlunar cycles)
For week: Seven sun risesand seven sunsets flankedagain by the moon glyph
For day: One sunrise andone sunset
Dates cont.
Note: the symbols to the left of eachglyph represent numbers: the shell for
zero, a bar for five, and a dot for one
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The Maya also had a sort of zodiac, with signs
they called lords of the night
This zodiac was used as part of the CalendarRound. They listed the date as such: The lordof the night X was seated in month Y
This was the way the Maya recorded theCalendar Round date (which, as stated earlier,
was simply used to corroborate the long count) So, here well write the sign for Aquarius1 (the
corresponding zodiac sign for this time of year),the Maya glyph for seated2, and a glyph for
February3
Another Date
1 2
3
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Last, we actually have to write the event
weve spent so long dating!
First, well rewrite the glyph for seated Then a glyph for Obama (A kings name
could have been one emblem glyph, orwritten out phonetically. Here Im using anemblem glyph.)
An eagle with a crown signifying presidentor chief executive officer (crown meaningchief, eagle representing the executivebranch of government)
And the titles
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Last well use an emblemglyph denoting the kingdom
being ruled (the United States)and an authentic Maya glyphfor house (Macri, Looper 253)combined with a glyph for
white to further specify thelocation (the White House ofcourse!)
To finish it off
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A record of Obamas inauguration, writtenin true Maya style (if not with authentic
Maya glyphs) If you happened to notice that the
millenniums, centuries, years, months, anddays dont quite add up to Obamas real
inauguration date, dont consider it amistake. Remember, Obama may havethought it luckier to be inaugurated on thefirst of February, and if thats how itswritten, thats how it happened
There you have it
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So what do you think? Are hieroglyphs quite asconfusing as they once seemed? Hopefully not. Then
again, its good to keep in mind that his was a verysimplified version of the system. To learn the entireMaya system takes years.
Conclusion