An Exploration of Maya Writing

By Spencer Mitchell

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An Exploration of Maya Writing Part 1: History, Discovery and Knowledge

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A culture is defined by its history, whether it is oral or written. For every culture, this most precious gift is always in danger of being destroyed or forgotten. For the Maya, the cultural enslavement by the Spanish all but crippled their sense of cultural memory and identity. This is due in part to their advanced writing system being oppressed by the

Spanish inquisition of the Americas during the 1500s. This first section will discuss the archaeological and linguistic evidence of its origins, how its people forgot its sacred meanings, the story of its decipherment and a general explanation of the grammar system.

The Classic Maya writing system that is known today was created by the Ch’olan language group of the Maya language family (Stone and Zender 2011). For centuries it was believed to be Yukatec Maya, but this was later disproven by the royal title inscription glyphs, which are actually Ch’olan in origin. This may be evidence that this dialect was that of the educated elite much like Latin in Medieval Europe. Today there are thirty-one known members of the Maya language family (Stone and Zender 2011), that are descendents of the Protomayan language. During the Classic Period (A.D. 250 to

900) the Maya generally used a standard writing system that is known today as Classic

Mayan, which is polysynthetic language. This means that each word has a base stem and is altered by bound derivational affixes. Unfortunately, as a result of the founding of

New Spain, the written form of Mayan slowly faded away from the cultural memory of the native speakers.

The Catholic missionaries led by Bishop de Landa led a full out war against the

Maya culture when he saw the Maya presenting offerings to the old gods. After seeing the depictions of the gods and the writing system’s otherworldly appearance, he came to the conclusion that it was all satanic. He then set to work on destroying the culture. He

2 captured the scribes and forced them to learn Latin based language systems. Any scribe that refused to use the Latin based writing system or was found to be reading or writing their own language was either tortured or burned at the stake (Coe 1999). They were further humiliated by being forced to give up their true names in favor of more “correct”

Christian names. The worst offense occurred on the night of July 16, 1562 when he burned the all the codices. This atrocity resulted the Maya people into forgetting their own written language; thus losing a vital connection to their cultural heritage (Coe,

1999).

Surprisingly the main villain in this story, Bishop Diego de Landa laid the foundations to repair some of the damage he had caused. He had attempted to create a

Maya alphabet to be a part of a cultural handbook to help future missionaries understand the Maya people. This alphabet was incorrect, primarily because the scribes he questioned gave him false information. Despite this, it helped organize some of the more prominant glyphs into some sort of list that would be helpful to future epigraphers (Coe and Stone, 2005).

It took several centuries for the Maya writing system to be rediscovered. Many westerners believed that the ruins in the Yucatan were built by the people of India or a lost tribe of Israel. They even went as far as to alter the glyphs in their transcriptions into matching their poorly founded hypothesis (Coe 1999). The first accurate documentation of the glyphs was preformed Alfred P. Muadslay. He hauled a new technology known as

“glass plate photography” in the jungle to document the monuments and hired the local people to tear the vegetation away from the monuments so they could be photographed.

The photographs captured the first unbiased representations of the glyphs. This enabled scholars to an accurate reading of the monuments for the first time (Coe 1999).

No real progress was made until 1880s, when Constantine Samuel Waldeck stumbled across the Dresden Codex in the Library of Dresden. The strange figures painted on the aged paper completely possessed him. His attention was drawn to the bar- and-dot systems; he soon realized that the sequence of dots never surpassed four. This led him to believe that the bars represented five. This was the first successful translation of any Maya hieroglyph in the Post-Landa era (Coe 1999). This discovery allowed Ernst

Forstemann to analyze the figures attached to the numbers. He soon realized that the codex seemed to revolve around dates and times. He also determined that the codex followed lunar and solar eclipses (Coe and Stone 2005).

During the twentieth century a new scholar rose to dominate the study of Maya epigraphy; this scholar’s name is Sir Eric Thompson. He worked closely with the Maya while conducting ethnographic studies of their modern cultures. Due to his research and his service in World War I, he became convinced that the Maya were a peaceful civilization free of the conflict that poisoned western society. He believed that they were simply a group of philosophical star watchers and time keepers. Thompson theorized that all of the Maya monuments and depictions were of gods and spirits; not accounts of historical events and lineages. He also believed that the Maya writing system was purely logographic and was extremely defensive against anyone who disagreed (Coe, 1999).

Unfortunately he was the number one authority on Maya epigraphy, so it was difficult to introduce new evidence during his reign.

During the early twentieth century there were few women in the field of

archaeology but Tatiana Proskouriakoff was one of the elite few. She

originally was an architect student at University of Pennsylvania

but was pulled into the field of archaeology by a small

advertisement asking for artist to

join an expedition to the site of Figure 1.1: Glyph for Birth. Drawing by Spencer Mitchell. Piedras Negras. She used her

knowledge of architecture to create accurate artist

renditions of Maya cities (Guernsey 2006). After her Figure 1.2: Glyph for Death. Drawing by Spencer Mitchell. field experience she got a project in reconstructing jade Mitchell. artifacts in the Peabody Museum at Harvard. This only increased her obsession with the

Maya writing system. She began pouring over the field notes from Piedras Negras, trying

to make sense of the strange mixture of symbols she encountered. She found that the

monuments were built in sequence; one was built every five years in front of a major

structure. She then noted that the first in each monument set featured a sacrificial figure

at the base from which a ladder stretched up to meet another important figure set in a

niche. She then came up with the idea that this figure was actually a ruler. This was an

incredible controversial notion because it was widely accepted that each of the

monuments represented mythological figures. She then began to notice that every

monument that introduced a new figure had a special glyph depicting an upturned

chameleon head (Figure 1.1), she discovered that this signified a birth. She also noted a

calendar glyph she called the “toothache glyph” that noted the death of the individual

depicted (Figure 1.2). When she tried to share her new ideas with academia but Sir Eric

Thompson scoffed at the idea that a woman had a new theory relating to the study of epigraphy (Coe 1999). After careful analysis however he realized that she was indeed correct and sent a formal apology.

The next great breakthrough came from Yuri Valentinovitch Knorosov. During his tour in World War II he came across a strange charred book in a bombed building.

This book contained copies of the Paris, Madrid and Dresden codices. When he returned to the Soviet Union he began to study the strange book he had found. He was able to develop new and revolutionary ideas behind the iron curtain, completely free from the influence of Sir Eric Thompson. Knorosov began to use his linguistic background to analyze the structure of the strange writing system. He knew if it was an alphabetic language it would have had only twenty to thirty symbols. If it had only eighty to hundred symbols it would have been a syllabic language, but it did not match that either. He also noted that Sir Eric Thompson

theory of it being a logographic language (such as Figure 1.3: Compound Glyph for West. Drawing by Michael Coe. Chinese) was improbable because it had only about eight hundred symbols in total. He Mitchell. began to wonder if it was a combination of syllabic and logographic,Mitchell. because it seemed illogical that a civilization would create a written system that could not fully express their language. Another issue he found that no one had ever considered comparing it the modern Mayan dialects spoken today. He tested his theory with the glyph that had been identified for the word “west” on the Madrid Codex (Figure 1.3). The first thing he did was split the glyph into parts: the upper and lower. The upper was a variation of a hand or chi’ in modern Mayan and the lower was the glyph for “sun” or “K’in” in Mayan.

When these are said together they form the word chik’in which translates to west. He had just proven that Classic Mayan is a polysynthetic language, not logographic Sir

Thompson suggested. He then tested this on several known glyphs to prove the relation.

The government of the USSR viewed Knorosov as a national hero when he announced his findings. The government proclaimed that it was the communistic ideals that led

Knorosov to this great discovery. Despite the enthusiastic eastern reception, Sir Eric

Thomson quickly called his work a hoax and compilation of useless propaganda. This resulted in Knorosov’s work being ignored by western academia for several decades

(Coe, 1999).

There were no new breakthroughs until 1970s when Maria Green Robertson and

Linda Schele journeyed to the famous site of Palenque. Their original intension was to record the artistic history of the area and to create a typology of the monuments (Coe 1999). What they actually found, revolutionized the study of epigraphy. They noted that on every name Figure 1.4: Flared Sun Glyph. Drawing by Michael Coe. pertaining to an individual had a glyph signifying the rank in society, but one byglyph Michael in Coe. particular caught their attention. It was a simple “flared sun” glyph (Figure 1.Mitche4), whichll.

Mitchell. signified that the individual was a ruler. This created great excitement among the team because they were now able combine this sign with the calendar glyphs to accurately order and name the rulers of the site. Schele then saw one name that looked familiar. It was the glyph representing Lord Shield. She then took a rubbing and sprinted to the temple of inscriptions and compared to a panel in the temple. They matched exactly; this meant they now knew the identity of the individual discovered in 1953 by Alberto Ruz

Lhuillier. One of the Maya workers then asked why the names were always translated

7 into English, and why not recorded in Mayan since they were Maya. Schele asked what shield was in Mayan and he then answered Pacal. So from then on, Lord Shield was known as Ajaw Pacal (Coe 1999). This then led to the proper translation of the majority of names of the Lords and Ladies they discovered in Classic Maya regions.

The final great figure in the decipherment is David Stuart. His introduction into the Maya language at an early age; he would often accompany his father, George Stuart to his archaeological sites and help him sketch the glyphs that he found. He took the concept of the Maya language being “unbreakable” as a challenge. When he was twelve he wrote a great paper on epigraphy that led to him receiving the MacArthur Award when he was eighteen. After he graduated high school he decided to wait to attend college to work full time on epigraphy. This ultimately proved to be the right decision because his father was a personal friend with Linda Schele. This was when he made his most influential discovery in the study of epigraphy. What David Stuart had found was that the Maya scribes would substitute certain symbols freely within their own written system.

He found that several symbols within the writing system all represented the same thing and would selected based on what was most aesthetically pleasing. Before scholars were trying to find a different translation for every single symbol (Coe 1999). Once this crucial aspect of the writing system was discovered, it made it possible for scholars to understand the syntax that was employed in creating this text. Instead of only being able to read small fragments of information, scholars are now able to read the monuments and surviving codices in their entirety.

As discovered by David Stuart, the Maya writing system had a basic structure that was regularly broken by the scribes. In the Maya texts the glyphs are systematically laid out in an imaginary grid to keep them evenly spaced. The glyphs are read

from left to right and are placed into groups of two per row. Figure 1.5: Illustration of Reading Order, Drawing by Spencer Mitchell. Once two glyphs are read left to right, the reader then must jump down to the next line

(Figure 1.5). Many of the signs are logographic in nature, simple oneMitchell.-meaning signs (the bar and dot number system being one such example of this). It is when they are compounded that it gets complicated (Tedlock 2010).

These compound glyphs are what made the language so difficult to crack. They consist of “the main sign” which is the largest glyph in the compound. The smaller, secondary signs are called affixes. A list of the most common affixes is provided in the back. Let’s look at the famous Lady Six Sky of Naranjo. Her “main sign” is Chan or

“sky,” which is listed first in Figure 1.6. This glyph then receives the affixes of Ajaw, IX, and six. Ix is the prefix for any person that is female. This is represented with a female face with IL markings on the cheek. The six is placed in front of the entire compound, between Ix and Chan, or on the forehead of the Ix symbols. The affix for ajaw wrap around the main sign of Chak. The full name for Lady Six Sky in Mayan is Ix Ajaw Woc

Chanil. A variation of her personal emblem glyph would have been the solution of

Figure 1.6.

Figure 1.6: Ix Ajaw Woc Chanil, Drawing by Spencer Mitchell.

It was important for the scribes to be able to build these glyphs into narratives to

Mitchell. promote the ideals and achievements of the current rulers. The “Primary Standard

Sequence” (PSS) achieved both of these feats and is the closest thing to writing standardization that they had (Coe and Stone 2005). This system was widely used on painted ceramic vessel found from the Classic period. It begins with a dedication date and praise to Pawatuun, the old god of the four sacred directions of the world. Second it explains the shape of the vessel and the material used to create the vessel. Third is the glyph representing the contents or use of the vessel. At the end of the PSS the scribe gives the owner’s name and title. He then writes whatever he wants to after that. Below is an example from a Classic period chocolate drinking vessel (Figure 1.7). The English translation is, “This is risen by his writing and is written out by (artist’s name) for his vessel fresh from the tree, a vessel for chocolate” (Coe and Stone 2005).

Figure 1.7: Primary Standard Sequence. Drawing by Spencer Mitchell.

Mitchell.

Most of the stone monuments begin with a similar dating sequence known as the

Intital Sequence (Coe and Stone, 2005). The typically begin with a date, which is then followed by a verb. This signifies the time in which the main event described on the monument took place. The

Maya are master time keepers, so their calendar is based off a collection of celestial cycles known as the Initial

Series. The Initial Series is the standard dating system for the Maya. It begins with an introductory glyph as seen in Figure 1.10, Glyph F. This can be located on the upper left hand side of the monument and is the principle sign for where the reader is supposed to begin. After the Figure 1.8: Example of the Calendar Round Glyphs. Drawing by Spencer Mitchell. introductory glyph comes the glyph for the long count. This system was created to avoid confusion with the more universal Mesoamerican Calendar RoundMitchell. System , which repeats itself every fifty-two years. The Long Count counts the days from September 8th, 3114

BC and is a massive permutation system. This enables it to calculate dates of millions of years in both directions on the timeline (Coe and Stone 2005). This long count date is then followed by a calendar round count. This consisted of a system of fifty-two years with 365 days apiece (Tedlock 2010). The first piece of the Calendar Round is the 260 day calendar which is built from twenty main signs and the bar-and-dot numeric system.

Four of the more prominent signs can be seen in Figure 1.8. This twenty glyph system would have been the closest thing to an alphabet the Maya would have had. Evidence of this system has been found in almost every Mesoamerican culture. At the site of

Teotihuacan a calendar round glyph was found on a pottery sherd, which is currently in

11 the possession of Humboldt State University (Figure 1.9). The glyph seen here means toj, which translates to “tribute.”

One would expect the Haab glyph (the month and its day number) to be positioned immediately after the 260 day count, but this is not the case.

Instead, the scribes would implement a system known as the

Supplementary Series. This series is based off of a six to seven glyph series that trace the lesser dating systems such as the k’atun system

Figure 1.9: The Teotihuacan Glyph, Photographed and the luner series. Scholars deciphered them in a reversed order: G, by Spencer Mitchell.

F, E, D, C, B, A. Later, other elements were found, which were labeled as Z, Y and X.

Mitchell. This system begins with glyph G and its modifier F. G is always a symbol representing one of nine gods and are labeled as such: G1,G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7, G8 and G9. An example would be the beginning of a K’atun cycle of twenty years. This was represented by zero or the aged god (G9) who was in charge of darkness and the Night Sun (Stone and Coe 2005).

Figure 1.10: The Initial Series Taken from Yaxchilan Lintal 21. Drawing by Spencer Mitchell.

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The second set within the Supplementary Series was the Lunar Cycle. This particular system is one of the most complicated in the Maya writing systems and would take several volumes to fully explain. There are three key points that they establish in dating. First, is that it explains how many days have passed since the last new moon.

Second, they distinguish the lunar month or lunation in a cycle of about six lunation or

177 days. Third, they establish if the current lunar month has twenty-nine or thirty days.

All of this information is established by Glyph E and D in the Supplementary Series.

Glyph C would then establish the position of a particular lunation within a cycle of six lunations. This glyph was distinguished by its “flat hand” verb suffixed by the affix –aj.

Glyph X is a modifier of Glyph C and represents the god ruling over each lunation. This is then further compounded with Glyph B which represents u k’aba or “its name.” The final symbol in the Lunar Series is Glyph A, which explains if the month has twenty-nine or thirty days. Thankfully there are only two variations for this glyph. It is a compound of the glyph for twenty and the bar-and-dot sign for nine or ten. After all of this the writer would finaly place the Haab date (Coe and Stone 2005). This is a rather complicated to explain, Figure 1.10 is an example from Yaxchilan Lentil 21.

The verb modifiers are one of the more critical sets of affixes within the Maya lexicon. These glyphs were always compounded with the direct object to show who receives the subject. A simple example would be the sign for “to have war with” or

“went to war with,” which is represented by a fallen star. The emblem glyph for Caracol will be used in this example as the direct object. Since compounded glyphs are read in a clockwise formation starting in the upper left hand side, the affix for war will be placed on top of the emblem glyph (Coe and Stone 2005). This roughly translates to “went to

13 war with Caracol” and would be place behind the noun performing the action. Now if this was used in a sentence, it must be placed behind the subject. For this hypothetical example, the name glyph for Lady Six Sky will be used as the subject (Figure 1.11). The sentence seen in Figure 1.12 translates to, “Lady Six Sky went to war against Caracol.”

Figure 1.11: The Compound Glyph for “war with Caracol.” Drawing by Spencer Mitchell.

The Maya writing systemMitchell. is a magnificent combination of art and literature that must be preserved. Due to its complexity it has taken over 450 years to recover the small portion knowledge of what was lost on the night of July 12, 1562. The Maya are now finally being instructed on how to read their own language in order to have access to their ancestral heritage. The written word gives valuable insights into the political actions of the great forest kingdoms of the Maya and it is only know that the silent stone monuments are releasing their secrets.

Figure 1.12: Example of a Maya Sentence. Drawing by Spencer Mitchell.

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An Exploration of Maya Writing Part 2: The Application

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“They accounted for everything- and did it too- as enlightened being, in enlightened words. We shall write about this now amid the preaching of God, in Christendom now.

We shall bring it out because there is no longer

a place to see it, a Council Book, a place to see “The Light That Came from Beside the Sea” the account of “Our Place in the Shadows.” a place to see “The Dawn of Life,”’ (Tedlock 1996)

This haunting passage from the Quiche Maya book known as the Popol Vuh explains the greatest act of cultural destruction in for the Maya people: the burning of the sacred Maya texts on July 16, 1562. This passage was scrawled by a Maya shaman while the cries of his people filled the night. Only four codices have Figure 2.1: Pages 24-27 of the Dresden Codex. Photographed by Unknown. survived into modern times. Among these rare texts is the famed Dresden Codex (Figure

2.1). This rare cultural treasure surfaced in Vienna when JohannMitchell. Christian Götze,

Director of the Royal Library at Dresden purchased it from an unknown individual. It is unclear how the manuscript arrived in Vienna, let alone Europe. It has been suggested that it was in the tribute to King Charles I of Spain from Hernan Cortez (Coe, 1999).

The codex itself explains the calendar sequences and the proper times for certain rituals and was produce sometime in the fifteenth century. The style of the glyphs indicate that it originated somewhere in the

Itzan polity since it matches the writing style of

Chichen Itza. The codex itself is a long strip of paper stretching to about eleven feet, which is folded over itself into three and a half to four and a half inch sections into an accordion or screen shape. The paper was a polished white, but age and water damage have made it the Figure 2.2: Hun Batz and Hun Chuen. Drawing by Miller and Taube. yellow color seen today. It is painted in colors made from soot and hematite based paints and it can also be inferred that every page had a border of red paintMitchell. around the main text.

The ends of the pages were glued to two planks of wood covered with the skin of a jaguar

(Tedlock 2010). The severe water damage along the top of the codex was due to the

Bombing of Dresden 1945 by the United States Army Air Force and the British Royal

Air Force. The librarian serving at the time of the bombing ran back into the burning

building to save the manuscript (Coe 1999).

Despite the massive amounts of written material found on ceramics, wood and stone it is believed that the Maya mainly utilized paper to record their information (Coe,

2011). Due to poor preservation conditions of the rainforest very little evidence has been found. But there have been a many rectangular, plaster coated blobs found in several

Classic Maya burials that are believed to be the remains of codices (Tedlock, 2010).

These blobs also contain evidence of the materials used for the paints on the other four

17 codices. Another crucial piece of evidence are the artistic depictions of scribes. There are several depictions of Maya noble men holding a bisected conch shell and a reed pen writing on a document folded in an screen like fashion (Tedlock

2010). Another key indicator of the writing methods is the depictions of the Maya scribe deities. The most common is the rabbit god Itzamna is believed to have instructed the Maya on how to write. Additionally, the half brothers of the Hero Twins,

Hun Batz and Hun Chuen (Figure 2.2), who are also known as the

Figure 2.3: The Ficus cotinifolia. Photographed monkey gods are known as being patron gods to writers and time by Unknown. keepers (Miller and Taube 2007). The famous murals of Bonampok also shed light on Mitchell. the importance of the scribes. There is a scene that depicts several Maya captives with their fingers bleeding, who are believed to be of elites status. For the scope of my research, I will replicate four pages of the Dresden Codex to gain a greater understanding on Maya scribal methods, specifically pages twenty-four to twenty-seven (Figure 2.1).

What I hope to accomplish is to determine the amount of labor required to manufacture a codex and the general painting methodologies utilized by the Maya scribes.

The Ch’olan Mayan word for paper is hun which doubles as the word for book.

The paper used for the codex was made from the inner bark of the Ficus cotinifolia

(Figure 2.3) a tree that belongs to the fig family. The Maya would create the paper by separating the inner bark from the tree. It would then be ground and pounded out into the sheet size necessary to produce the codex. They would also soak it in a solution of limestone to act a sort of sealant (Tedlock 2010). I found that most watercolor paper produced by art supply companies use this specific species of tree. I purchased a large

sheet of watercolor paper that meet the specifications noted by Denis Tedlock along with

a bag of limestone rocks. The rocks were then ground into fine powder and mixed into a

pan of water. The paper was set into this solution overnight. The next morning I took the

sheet outside and hung it out to dry and pounded down the frayed edges of the paper.

The next thing the Maya would do is fold the paper back and forth into the screen shape.

This creates the iconic style of the Maya codices. This was a fairly easy step to do; I

simply folded it into fourths and used a roller to force the creases in.

The archaeological record shows that they would coat the paper in a stucco-like

gesso to serve as a primer. This would create a surface similar to the stucco facades seen

all across the Maya region on their buildings and ceramics. This gesso would have been

a solution of limestone and calcium carbonate (Tedlock 2010). Fortunately, I found a

type of gesso of similar mixture. I then took the limestone-soaked paper and thoroughly

coated it in the gesso. It needed about three coats to have a smooth surface. It was then

necessary to polish the paper with a smooth stone to create the radiant white shine the

codices once had. This whole process took approximately four hours.

The next step is to create a vessel to hold the paints. The Maya used bisected

conch shells, which have been found all over the Classic Maya elite sites. These can be

seen in depictions of scribes virtually

everywhere within the Classic Maya sites.

Figure 2.8 shows a painting on a ceramic

chocolate drinking vessel with a Maya scribe

holding such a conch. They would have ground Figure 2.4: Maya Style Ink Well. Photographed by Spencer Mitchell.

19 Mitchell. it down with a course rock and would have then smoothed it out with a softer stone

(Tedlock 2010). I attempted this method for a few days but, due to time constraints, I switched to a hacksaw which split the shell with little difficulty (Figure 2.4).

It is also necessary to create the brushes for painting. The Maya would generally use two types of writing implements. The first is a hair brush and were generally comprised of a reed or bone with a bunch of hair either tied or inserted into the tip (Tedlock 2010). I created this item by buying a thin stick of bamboo and sawing it off at an appropriate length. I then cut a bit of my own hair and shoved it into the end of the reed. I then tied the base with a plant fiber I found in the Humboldt forest and coated the Figure 2.5: Maya Style Hair Brush and Reed Pen. Photographed by Spencer Mitchell entire base in glue (Figure 2.5). Sadly, I could only produce one without chopping off all of my hair, so I substituted them with a set of conventional modernMitchell. paint brushes. The second type is the reed pen. This was generally a sharp stick or bone that was dipped into the conch shell for paint. I replicated this by stealing several coffee stirrers from the

Depot and sharpening the ends with a knife. For this I simply held the sticks over the trash can cut the tips to a severe point (Figure 2.5).

When it actually came to painting the codex, the

Maya would use the reed pen to create a grid system.

This was generally done (at least in the surviving four codices) in a faint red paint. They would do this to insure even spacing and that the glyph stayed in a Figure 2.6: Charcoal Sketch. Photographed by Spencer Mitchell.

20 Mitchell. straight line down and across the page (Tedlock 2010). I imitated this by taking my printed copy of the original and gridding it off so I could scale it up to the size of mine.

Unfortunately, I was off by a few millimeters. This resulted in my glyphs being a little too small which meant they stopped about one and a half inches above the end of the page. I then had to reapply the gesso on the first page covering up my grid and failed glyph sketches. Once it had dried, I repainted the grid pattern in using my crudely crafted reed pen. I then took the copies of the original codex and had them enlarged to the exact size of mine to avoid any future miscalculation. Once I did all this the scale became correct.

When the Maya would sketch the glyphs, they would generally use charcoal or the same red paint they used on the grid pattern (Tedlock 2010). For this I just decided to only use charcoal (Figure 2.7). I found that because I am left handed I had a tendency to

erase my own writing. To

prevent this I taped paper

over the section I had just

finished. The Maya could

Figure 2.7: Classic Chocolate Drinking Vessel. Photograph by Justin Kerr. not have done this of course.

Judging by the depictions the scribe would work on an inclined desk with their hand

Mitchell. completely away from the paper at the back of the quill pen. This can be seen on Figure

2.7. I would have to place a paper cover over each page as I finished it to prevent the charcoal from grinding off on the desk as I tuned the pages. Each glyph takes several minutes to sketch and is a very time consuming process. I used the charcoal to create the outlines of the figures and the characters. Another difficulty I am encountering is that

21 several of the glyphs and paintings are illegible due to the wear of time; especially, the god located on the bottom of the second page that appears to be in a reclined position and holding onto some sort of scepter or cane. Fortunately, I have found a recreation of what this deity would have looked like. I used this as a guide to recreate its original appearance. The next step is to outline all of the figures and glyphs in black to make them permanent.

I filled the conch shell with the black paint and then used the reed pen to outline every line that was written in charcoal. This process is extremely tedious and it places intensive strain on the eyes and wrists. I would only work for three to four hours a day in an attempt to avoid these issues. It took a little over four weeks to properly outline all of the figures. Occasionally, I would make a mistake because my eye sight would become blurred, my hands were shaking or I would simply become too tired. I would have to correct this mistake by reapplying the gesso with either the fine point paint brush or the reed pen. The average mistake would require up to six coats of gesso to hide.

Once I outlined all of the glyphs and characters in black paint, I had to apply the red border to the edges of the paper (Figure 2.8). This was a fairly easy process. I used

the hair brush to run the paint along the border and

divider lines. Originally I did this free hand and

found that my lines were anything but straight. I

then decided to use a straight edge for a cleaner

look. I believe it is safe to assume the Maya

Figure 2.8: Painting the Red Border. Photographed by Spencer Mitchell. scribes did the same. I took a piece of paper and folded it into a ruler like shape and taped it approximately a quarter inch away from the

Mitchell. 22 edge. It was then just a matter of quickly running the paint in the space provided. This whole process took about two hours.

The focus then turned to the gods. I had outline the figures with black paint as mentioned above, so now it was a matter of coloring them in. Originally the figures were

vibrant shades of green, orange, blue

and yellow but the wear of age and

time have made them the dull dark

colors we see today. The first god I

painted was the water god seen on the

Figure 2.9: Painting the Backgrounds. Photographed by Spencer Mitchell. third page, on the bottom row. He served as my prototype, since he is the simplest of the nine depicted. I decided the best

Mitchell. approach was to do them all in a single day to avoid confusion after I had finished all of the backgrounds (Figure 2.9). For the backgrounds I used my hairbrush, its broad size allowed for heavy coating in a short amount of time. I originally thought that was all the work I was going to do that day, but I decided to finish the painting the entire project by the end of the night. My usual three to four hour sitting turned into an eleven hour sitting. I used the painting pallet for simplicity; I was not going to wash out the conch for every color needed. I used the fine hair brush and the reed pens to get into the tiny spaces in the picture. This was such an intensive work session my hand shook for two days afterwards and my eye were still bloodshot the following morning.

I left the pages to dry for about two days before I started the cover. The Maya used wood wrapped in jaguar hide (Coe and Stone 2005). For obvious reasons I could not use actual jaguar hides, so I settled for wood stain but I may eventually wrap it in a

23 synthetic skin. Due to my low economic standing as a college student I was unable to acquire a proper table saw for the wood. I resolved this issue by purchasing a simple two dollar box cutter and used that to shape the wood into the proper size. I took the pages and folded them to their proper accordion style shape and drew out the measurements. I then set the wood on the carpet floors of my dorm room and carefully began to slit the wood with the box cutter. It cut with extraordinary efficiently and produced the covers in only fifteen minutes. I then removed the labels and glue that still clung to the wood.

After I finished vacuuming the room and searching the carpet for holes, I took the two covers outside for staining. I used a generic fifty cent paintbrush to coat the both pieces in the wood stain. Due to the high humidity in Humboldt County, it took the wood almost a full week to dry (Figure 2.10).

The final step was the binding process. The Maya would have used a special type of epoxy made of the various plant types found in the local area (Stone and Zender 2011).

I used the same glue that was used on the brush, Gorilla Glue. I began by placing the two wooden covers on my desk on a pile of printer paper because the stain still had not fully dried. I took the folded codex pages and aligned it with the wood. I lightly marked its position on the wood with a pencil and took the pages off. I poured a generous amount of Figure 2.10: The Wood Cover. Photographed by Spencer glue onto the back of the paper. It is important to place it Mitchell. on the wood quickly to avoid warping the paper. I had also placed printer paper over the Mitchell. painted side to protect the images form damage. I repeated the process a second time for

24 the other side. To insure that the paper properly fused with the wood, I piled all of my text books onto the folded codex. I then left it out to dry for a full week.

Once the week had passed, I carefully removed the books from the codex. As I unfolded it, I removed the printer paper I had placed on the pages. These guard papers proved to be important because it protect the images from glue and wood stain. I then laid it flat on the table and began to look for unglued edges. I found that the corners and trim remained detached. So I decided to sacrifice a few of my reed pens to insert the glue into where it was needed. I had to set the codex back on the table with the books stacked on it to allow the glue to set for a second week.

Once the drying period was done, I preformed the final touchups on the paint.

This was done completely using the reed pen, since the areas that needed it were so fine.

I scraped off any residue that clung to the edges of the paper with the box cutter. The final step to do was to photograph the final product and its tools (Figure 2.12).

The Dresden Codex is truly a fine work of art and an important piece of

Mesoamerican Literature. What I have

found in this experiment was that

producing one of these books was an

extremely labor intensive endeavor.

Any official scribe had to be a skilled

artist in order to create a piece worthy Figure 2.11: The Final Product. Photographed by Spencer Mitchell. for their patron. They had to be trained at an early age to write because perfecting the skills needed would have taken many years to Mitchell.

25 accomplish. Learning to read is relatively straight forward, so that only takes a few years

(if the individual is a native speaker). It can be inferred that scribes suffered from severe osteoarthritis which could be read in the archaeological record. The scribes would have developed it in the wrist and fingers, more specifically the midcarpal joint. This was due to their awkward positioning of the hands during the painting process. This form was incredibly uncomfortable and caused me severe pain and doing this full time would have had lasting impacts such as osteoarthritis. This may be an excellent project to expand upon in the future. I wish to conduct further research using the authentic material the

Maya would have used, including paint, paper and adhesive products.

This project was incredibly labor intensive. Overall the experiment took me over six weeks to complete, while working four to six hours a day and each page took approximately fifty-two hours to produce. If I were to replicate the entire document it would have taken an estimated total of two thousand hours. The professional scribes would certainly be able to produce the figures at a faster pace than me, but it would still be a time consuming undertaking. It can be inferred that the scribes would have been selected and trained at an early age to insure that they could produce the manuscripts in a time efficient manner. Because the Dresden Codex is a ceremonial piece it requires a more formal or artistic style. This particular codex was produced by a total of six scribes.

This project gave me a better appreciation for the Maya writing system. After experiencing the process first hand I now know why there were so few of them. A scribe in the Maya world would have been a valuable commodity worth even going to war for.

Every work they produced took hundreds of man hours and a large amount of resources.

The end result was worth it; an amazing work of art that preserves the culture that created it.

Bibliography

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 Coe, Michael

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 Coe, Michael

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 Guernsey, Julia

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