Kim Tx
Maya Writing System and
Calendar Code
Maya writing system standsas the most sophisticated ever developed
in ancient America.
Until 40 years ago it proved
to be amongthe most baffling
undeciphered systems
in the world.
Progress in breaking the codecame in four stages.
The first one came between
1880 and 1910.
A German Scholar,
led by Ernst Forstemann,
head of the royal library in Dresden.
He solved the Maya Calendar system.
The second a Russian scholar
Yuri Knorozov
successfuly dicipherment
of the non-calendrical texts
in the early 1950's.
He realized the
Bishop Landa's
old account of Yucatan,
that the Maya hieroglyphic system
was a mixture of words and
syllables that adhered to rigid rules
of sound and language.
The third stage of decipherment
began in 1960,
Tatiana Proskouriakoff's
unveiling of the historical content
of the Maya texts at
Piedras Negras.
The fourth great effort,
began at the First Round Table
meeting of scholars at
Palenque in1973,
witnessed the entry of
full-fledged linguists into the fray,
led by Floyd Lounsbury of Yale.
An estimated 5,000 known Mayatexts of varying length appear in
carved or painted form
on stelae and altars,
pottery vessels, ornaments,
building walls and lintels,
the page os books,
and inside caves and tombs.
The maya scribes had some
800 different hieroglyphic signs
and which was cataloged in
1962 by Sir Eric Thompson.
Each one could appear in simple form
or in more elaborate versions.
Some were profile heads,full figures of people
or animals or Gods.
These stood for words or syllablesor as complementary elements
to clarify intent.
With all these symbols the scribes
could render any word or
sound in their language.
The word pacal, or shield,could be written either by using a
picture of a shield or
by spelling the word out
with the syllable signs pa-ca-la, with the understanding that the
"dead" vowel
at the end could be dropped.
By putting both versions
side by side,
there would be no doubt
what the meaning was.
Often, however,
several different signs
could stand for the same thing.
The Maya used a least
12 separate glyphs for the sound u,
the third person possessive pronoun,
or a phonetic component
of verb uti--it happened.
As if this were not enough to drive
an spigraphist insane,
some glyphs have
several different meanings.
The sign for the day cauac,
for instance,
when stripped of its
calendrical frame,
can become the word tun,
meaning "stone," a 360-day period,
or the syllable ku in the
word ak(u), which means "turtle".
Whatever the words or syllablesthe scribes chose to write,
they grouped them into the familiar,
gently rounded blocks that
typify ancient Maya texts.
Depending on the complexity
of the elements,
the space available,
or sheer whim,
they distributed signs among adjacent glyphblocks,
or squeezed them into one
and making sure to keep the more
complicated statements in
proper grammatical order--verb, object, subject.
Using the work ofTatiana Proskouriakoff,
scholars have reconstructed the royal dynasties of many of the
classic Maya City states.
Thanks to them,
we can now speak with easy familiarity
of such rulers as the
great Shield Jaguar of Yaxchilan,
who lived to such a ripe old age,
or his son Bird Jaguar,
who apparently
reveled in his hard-earned title,
"he of 20 captives".
On a Stone Lintel from Yaxchilan,a long Count date uses glyphs
of full figures as time periods
and heads as numbers.
The monkey at center right,
symbol for a single day,
holds the head for the number 6;
the skull below it represents 10,
for a total of 16.
Multiplied by the one day,
the glyph says "16 days".
Combined,
all the glyphs equal the
date February 11, 526 B.C.
Numeral System
The Maya perfected a calendarand numeral system that
ranked as outstanding
intellectual achievements.
Maya priest-scholars set forth
an imaginative concept of time
as a series of burdens carried on the
backs of divine bearers.
Each day brought by the
sacred bearers
held its own promise of happiness
or misery, success or failure.
As we do today,
the Maya wrote figures in
two distinct ways, comparable to
Roman and Arabic numerals.
Maya "Roman" numerals
were dots and bars, as shown above.
A dot stood for one; a bar, five.
Combined they reached
19- maximum number of days
before the next time unit,
the Maya 20-day month.
Starting off the numeral system
is the shell sign for zero.
For their "Arabic " system,
from zero through 19,
the Maya designed fantastic heads
(above right).
These were of two kinds.
Zero through 13 were represented by
patron deities such as
Death, Sun, and Rain.
From the second number 13 on,
the heads were composites.
Each combined the skeleton jaw
from number 10 with one of the other
number signs, 3 through 9.
In writing large numbers,
the Maya multiplied by
means of position,
using the zero.
The above chart gives examples of
Maya
dot-and bar numbers
throught the first four
orders of the time count.
The figures represent days,
beginning at the first order
with 13 units (13x 1).
At the second order,
four dots are multiplied by 20
(the number of days in a Maya month)
and added to five units, producing 85.
The third order brings an exception,
the only one to break the even rise
of Maya figures.
At this point the multiple becomes 360
(that is, 1x20 x18) instead of
400 (1 x 20x 20).
This deviations probably arose
from the Maya wish to bring this
count as near as possible to the
length of the solar year.
The fourth order,
progression by twenties returns,
providing a Maya 20-year period
of 7,200 days.
In the last column's grand total
of 75,000 the final,
all important unit zero is obtained
by the simple step, 0 x 1 equals 0.
Pictured above are eight dates
from the Maya solar year cycle
that correspond to some of our
holidays or celebrations.
In each hieroglyph,
the number in bars and
dots indicates position
in the month,
the sign at right the name of the
Maya month.
These parallels are based on the
Maya calendar of the 1560's
described by
Bishop Diego de Lando.
Two examples,
11 Zac and 12 Mol,
show how the sculptors filled unused
numeral spaces with decorative detail.
Thereby the Maya reveal not only their
artistry but the infinite care with
which they fashioned in stone a
monument
to their philosophy of time.
This page was done to satisfy
my thrist for History.
I hope it has satisfied
others thrist for knowledge.
Credit
Thanks for the Background!
