6-the glyphs of the maya- draft 1

8/3/2019 6-The Glyphs of the Maya- Draft 1

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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

6-the glyphs of the maya- draft 1

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