E-1168

1 STORY ST 302 THURSDAY 5.30-7.30 PM https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/4236

 More

overview

and epigraphers u

u

ka ya

yo / YOP

wa  Documentation 1860-s +

 Calendar and chronology 1860-s +

 Phonetic breakthrough 1950-s +

 Structural analysis 1960-s +

 Growing scholarly community 1960-s +

 Linguistic documentation 1960-s +

 Final breakthrough 1980-s +

mak kakaw xaman chak

i-?-?la- u-WE’-?-bi-li u-WE’-i-bi u-WE’-i-bi ?-?li

i-bi-li

A B yu-k’i-bi ta-?-li/la ka-[ka]-wa  20 or 21 consonants  10 vowels (or more, depending on the reconstruction)  p’ is not proven

 a logo-syllabic  600+ characters (~200 are common)  almost no semantic determinatives  almost no auxiliary signs  final consonants are spelled with syllabic signs  underspellings are uncommon  characters are grouped into ‘blocks’  ‘main signs’ and ‘’  some characters are rotatable

Words in the Maya script may be written with (phonetic values only) or with (pronunciation & meaning):

AJAW vs. a-ja-wa

PAKAL vs. pa-ka-la

WITZ vs. wi-tzi

Understanding spelling variation became key to all later yo-OTOOT yo-OTOOT-ti yo-to-ti o-to-ti

The OTOOT represents a building on a platform. Some early texts indicate that it could be pronounced as ATOOT. This sign only corresponds to the word otoot in all of its meanings (“dwelling, home, box, bottle”). The sign cannot be used to spell the same word in other Mayan (e.g. Yukatek otoch). ka-ka-wa k’u-k’u

tzu-tzu-ja bu-bu-lu HA’

u-KAB u-CH’EEN u-ne-ne  Transcription is a record of the actual values of individual Maya in a text. Additional clues may be given to highlight signs or parts of signs which are reconstructed, conflated, or unpronounced

 Transliteration represents the actual encoded by the script

 Logographs are in BOLD UPPERCASE  Syllabic signs are in bold lowercase  Linguistic forms are in italics  Translations are in quotation marks  Transcription: po-p(o) TUUN-(ni)

 Transliteration: pohp tuun

 Translation: “stone mat” / “mat stone” yi chi u tz’i ba li PA’ ja yi yu-k’i bi ta u-lu CHAN-na

yi chi u tz’i ba li u ja yi yu k’i bi ta tzi hi TE’ le ka  Left to right  Top to bottom

 Some inscriptions are more flexible in this respect

Lintel 16 Altar 5

 References to various calendars and time cycles occupy large sections of most texts

 These sections offer an easy way to establish the reading order in the text

ch’o[ko] u-pa ka-bu TUUN-ni-li

u-pa-ka-bu-TUUN a-na-bi ch’a-ho-ma

a + ch’a bi + ho

ch’a-ho-ma Three ways of writing tz’a-pa-ja, tz’ahpaj “it is driven into the ground” K’IN pa allographs In the Late Classic period, the words for “snake”, “sky”, and “four” became . Maya scribes distinguished between them by using different logograms allographs (and their allographs).

However, in some cities like Yaxchilan, all these characters became mutually interchangeable.

KAN / CHAN lo/CHIIT IXIIM/na SUUTZ’/tz’i/xu KAN/bi se/cha/CHUWEN

K’IN / 4 TUUN/ku/KAWAK PIK/pi/KAL KAL/pi

li la 400

500

600

700  CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) syllables are spelled by adding a CV character with a silent vowel  The silent vowel may be the same as in the (synharmonic) or different (disharmonic)  Disharmonic spellings mark complex vowels  Silent initial or final CV characters may accompany logograms as phonetic complements ku-tzu tzu-lu ba-ki mu-ti cha-ki CHAHK-ki muwaan muwan

baak bak

aat at

y-ook y-ok  Functional typology (syllables, logograms, determinatives, auxiliary)  Transcription & transliteration  Reading order  blocks  Visual typology (rotatable and non-rotatable)  Addition, conflation, superimposition  Allographs, homophones, polyphones  Change over time  Spelling rules

ANTHROPOLOGY E-1168

10-MINUTE BREAK  Old World: documentation and study of inscriptions on hard objects (in contrast to paleography that centers on manuscripts); a technical subfield of history and/or

 New World: decipherment, study of inscriptions, manuscripts, writing systems, languages, literatures, history, visual culture; a subfield of anthropology and art history  Still some decipherment (slower pace)

 Documentation and publication of texts

 Contributions to /historical linguistics

 Maya writing and other Mesoamerican scripts

 Contributions to archaeology, history, anthropology, and art history

 Fewer people are attending large public conferences (UT Austin Maya Meetings, Tulane Symposium); some events have disappeared (Peabody Museum workshops, UPenn weekends)

 Pre-Columbian societies in the US are declining

 The field is becoming less transparent to people with no background in , anthropology, and historical linguistics  UT Austin/Brown/BYU (Stuart, Houston, Robertson, Law): morphosyllables, tenses, Ch’olti’an

 European (Madrid, Bonn, Moscow, Copenhagen) (Lacadena, Wichmann, Brown, Beliaev, Davletshin, Helmke, Hull, Grube, Prager): phonetic, aspects, Ch’olan (different vowels)

 Don’t ask, don’t tell (UPenn, Tulane, Harvard, Yale, La Trobe; Martin, Zender, Chinchilla, Tokovinine, Mathews)

 SUNY (Justeson, Kaufman, Mora-Marin): underspellings, aspects, Proto-Ch’olan

 Database (Macri, Looper) & codex people (Vail, Hernandez, Bricker): uncertain language/grammar, glyphs from the 90-s

 Old sensibilities: restricted social context, propaganda fears

 Lack of training in (and appreciation of) languages, , and history

 Post-structuralist critique: power and authority in social sciences, western ideas about writing  Schele and Grube’s workshops, (Mayas for the Mayan) and similar initiatives (Western academic patronage)

 Cholsamaj, Kachoch ajtz’iib and other indigenous organizations

 Iyaxel Ixkan Cojti Ren, Romelia Mo, Guillermo Kantun Rivera and other indigenous Maya scholars (incorporated into Western/national academic institutions)

 How to document?

 How did the standards develop?

 What are the challenges?

 Drawing = interpreting

 Epigraphy and technology Ricardo Almendariz 1787 José Antonio Calderón 1750 or 1751 Antonio del Río, 1787 Jean-Frederic Waldeck, The Beau Relief, , 1837 Pedro Marquez, 1804 Desirée Charnay Facade of the House of the Masks, Kabah  Alfred Percival Maudslay (1850-1931)

 Documented the monuments of Palenque, Copan and Quirigua in both casts and photographs, opening the way to the decipherment of Maya writing. Spectacular images & prints Stela A, Quirigua Glass plate negatives… Making and transporting molds

 Teobert Maler (1842-1917)

 Pioneer photographer of numerous Maya sites (including Tikal, Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras). Much of his work was published by Harvard’s Peabody Museum in the early years of the 20th century.

sketch photograph photograph inking

 Based on multiple images

 Uniform conventions

 Easy to publish and to share

 Trained judgment

Detail of MS photograph of Mural 7, Tikal St 26

Copan Stela 63  No reconstruction

 Erosion marks or features are not indicated

 Recessed background is stippled

 Stippling density reflects background preservation

 Lines reserved for carved features and exterior contours (solid when certain, stippled when not)

 A row of dots outside the block’s exterior line

Ixkun Stela 1 by Hunter (Chicago conventions) and Graham (CMHI conventions) Stela 30,

Lacanha Panel  3d scans address the distortion issue

 3d allows better control of light and texture

 3d filters may amplify visibility of certain carved feature Piedras Negras Panel 2 DO PC.B.528 Grey descriptor radiance scaling: La Sufricaya Stela 5 vs. Building A-sub frieze  Implicit choices, yet much less known than in photography

 Data collection (resolution, averaging, filters)

 Data processing (masking, edge reduction, optimization)

 Definitions  Maya epigraphy: sensibilities and responsibilities  History of documentation  Epigraphic drawing: conventions and challenges  New technologies and techniques ANTHROPOLOGY E-1168

1 STORY ST 302 THURSDAY 5.30-7.30 PM https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/4236