Early undeciphered:
Mesoamerican Writing Systems
Teotihuacano (may be just iconography)
•
•
•
•
Quichean
Teotihuacano (may be just iconography)
Xochicalco
Ñuiñe
Xochicalco
Ñuiñe
Early (partly) deciphered:
• Maya (attested from 2nd century CE)
• Epi-Olmec (attested from 2nd century CE or
slightly earlier)
• Zapotec (attested from 6th century BCE)
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Maya (attested from 2nd century CE)
Epi-Olmec
(attested from 2nd century
CE or slightly earlier)
Zapotec
(attested
from 6th
century
BCE)
Mixtec
Later Pictographic:
• Mixtec
• Aztec
Aztec
aka Mexica
aka Nahua
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The Codex
Mendoza
Numbers
recorded Aztec
empire tributes (to
be absorbed by the
Spaniards), showing
place names and
goods tributed
• The all dot system:
Mixtec, Aztec
• The bar and dot system: Maya, EpiOlmec, Zapotec, Ñuiñe
• Elements of base 5, base 10 (decimal) and
especially base 20 (vigesimal) systems,
found in Mesoamerican languages,
numerical representations and calendars.
Aztecs and Mixtecs used the all-dot system,
often arranging the dots vertically and horizontally in
groups of five
260-day Mesoamerican calendar:
20 named days
20 day names combined with the
numbers 1-13
1 alligator
2 wind
3 house
4 lizard
5 snake
6 death
7 deer
8 rabbit
9 water
10 dog
11 monkey
12 grass
13 reed
1 jaguar
2 eagle
3 vulture
4 earthquake
5 flint
6 rain
7 flower
8 alligator
Mixtec
numerological
marriage
prognostications
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Maya
The Tzolk’in
bar-and-dot
numbers and
head variants
(drawn by
Josserand)
(Maya version of
260-day calendar;
drawn by Josserand)
Winal
(month)
names in
the Haab
The
calendar
round (the
combination of
the tzolk’in and
haab dates;
from Schele)
(the Maya
365-day
calendar;
drawn by
Josserand)
An example of a calendar round
date used in a real inscription
(drawn by Josserand)
The Long Count
(drawn by Josserand)
counts the time passed since
the beginning of this cycle,
which began on August 13,
3114 BCE and will end on
October 13, 4772 CE
k’in = 1 day
winal = 20 days
tun =20 winals, i.e. 360 days
k’atun = 20 tuns, i.e. 7200 days
bak’tun = 20 k’atuns, i.e. 144,000
days
1 cycle = 20 bak’tuns,
i.e.2,880,000 days or ca. 7885
years
4
Like the way we use Gregorian dates, the
ancient Maya could refer to dates with all or
some of the calendric systems they used
Friday, April 9, 2004
12.19.11.3.2, 11 Ik’, 5 Pop
Landa’s “alphabet”
What Landa was like to work
with:
The units of
time used in
the Long
Count are
also used to
count time
passed since
other events
(drawn by
Schele)
Landa must have asked the scribe
to write “l, e ‘le’”
How Knorosov figured it out (from Coe):
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Part of the
deciphered
Maya
syllabary
Glyphs have variant forms, including
both scrunched up and full versions:
Maya writing is logosyllabic: both
logograms (“word” glyphs) and syllabograms are used
both alone and in combination
The Maya adapted a system with
CV syllabograms to fit their CVC
languages using the principle of
synharmony: when you need to just
represent a consonant, use the sign for
that consonant plus the preceding vowel
An earlier logosyllabic writing
system in
Mesoamerica is epiOlmec writing.
There are at least 3
known examples:
La Mojarra Stela 1
is an
approximately
8’x5’ slab of
basalt
The La Mojarra stela
The Tuxtla Statuette
A looted mask
6
The Tuxtla Statuette
bears a Long Count date
of 14 March 162 CE
Looted Teotihuacán-style mask
Justeson & Kaufman’s decipherment
Part of the epi-Olmec syllabary
Deciphering logograms
• Some may be pictographic
• Some may be gotten from context
(phonetic, morphological, semantic)
• Accompanying iconography can provide
clues
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A Maya
bloodletting
ceremony for a
female ruler
Iconography
from Maya
vase shows
male
bloodletting
ceremony
Same kneeling
posture seen in
glyphs
Note further similarities between
Epi-Olmec and Maya glyphs
Like the Maya, the Olmecs used
a logosyllabic writing system
with CV syllabograms to write
their own CVC language
An earlier logosyllabic writing
system in Mesoamerica used CV
syllabograms to write a CV
language: Proto-Zapotec
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