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Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Maya hieroglyphic analysis requires epigraphers to spend a significant amount of time browsing existing catalogs to identify individual glyphs. Automatic Maya glyph analysis provides an efficient way to assist scholars' daily work. We introduce the Histogram of Orientation Shape Context (HOOSC) shape descriptor to the Digital Humanities community. We discuss key issues for practitioners and study the effect that certain parameters have on the performance of the descriptor. Different HOOSC parameters are tested in an automatic ancient Maya hieroglyph retrieval system with two different settings, namely, when shape alone is considered and when glyph co-occurrence information is incorporated. Additionally, we developed a graph-based glyph visualization interface to facilitate efficient exploration and analysis of hieroglyphs. Specifically, a force-directed graph prototype is applied to visualize Maya glyphs based on their visual similarity. Each node in the graph represents a glyph image; the width of an edge indicates the visual similarity between the two according glyphs. The HOOSC descriptor is used to represent glyph shape, based on which pairwise glyph similarity scores are computed. To evaluate our tool, we designed evaluation tasks and questionnaires for two separate user groups, namely, a general public user group and an epigrapher scholar group. Evaluation results and feedback from both groups show that our tool provides intuitive access to explore and discover the Maya hieroglyphic writing, and could potentially facilitate epigraphy work. The positive evaluation results and feedback further hint the practical value of the HOOSC descriptor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have been aware for some time of the linguistic and orthographic processes through which phonograms, signs that communicate an established phonetic value but have no inherent semantic content, may be derived from logographs, which encode semantic meaning, but whose phonetic value can vary depending on the linguistic context. However, they have largely ignored the possibility of the reverse, of phonograms transforming into logographs. This phenomenon, referred to here asorthographic semantization, entails the reinterpretation of a known sequence of one or more phonetic signs as conveying an inherent semantic value. At the same time, the original phonetic reading of the reinterpreted sign or sign sequence becomes obscured or changes completely, even if the graphic form remains the same. This paper explores evidence of this process in Maya hieroglyphic writing by examining cases of overspelling and incongruent or redundant phonetic complementation. Significantly, the underlying motivations for orthographic semantization differ by context. Hence, studies of this phenomenon can yield insight into the sociocultural aspects of script development and use, including language contact, script ideology, script transfer, or interruptions in scribal practice. Such research promises to enhance our understanding of the dynamic relationship between writing, its users, and spoken language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Advances in hieroglyphic decipherment and in language contact typology provide new data and theories with which to investigate and reassess prior interpretations of Mayan linguistic history. The present study considers the shift from proto-Mayan *k and *k' to /ch/ and /ch'/, a sound change that affected several Mayan languages in different phonological contexts. This sound change, with a very particular set of conditions, has been highlighted as a defining feature of the Cholan-Tseltalan branch of the Mayan language family. New evidence suggests that this sound change was shared as a result of contact around the time of the Classic period, rather than reflecting an inherited sound change that would have taken place at a much earlier stage of the language family. Hieroglyphic data provide further evidence that this sound change was adopted in the hieroglyphic language in a word-by-word fashion, rather than applying to all similar phonological contexts at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of terminal long count dates from stone monuments in the Maya lowlands have played a central role in characterizing the rise and “collapse” of polities during the Late and Terminal Classic periods (a.d. 730–910). Previous studies propose a directional abandonment of large political centers from west-to-east. We retest the west-to-east hypothesis, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial statistics to analyze an updated dataset of 89 terminal dates from the Maya Hieroglyphic Database (MHD). Our results do not support a directional collapse, but instead suggest a contraction of Terminal Classic polities around seven core areas in the Maya lowlands. Three regions demonstrate distinct subregional abandonments of monument carving over a period of 24 to 127 years, consistent with independent archaeological data for each region. Advances in GIS, spatial statistics, and related methods applied to an increasingly detailed and comprehensive epigraphic and archaeological database provide a foundation for examining long-term sociopolitical dynamics in the Maya lowlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the presence of Classic Maya artistic cultures in the Hieroglyphic Stairway found in Copan, Honduras. Topics discussed include possible explanations for the lack of artists' names at Copan and two major phases of construction of the stairway. Also discussed is the contribution of Italian art historian and art critic Giovanni Morelli to the study of the stairway.

The article discusses the astronomical character of a set of 9th-century Maya inscriptions found on the walls of a residential home in the ancient city of Xultun, Guatemala. The authors argue that the hieroglyphic inscriptions display a lunar synodic month semester table and day tallies that are connected to Maya calendar and astronomical cycles. Because these inscriptions contain similar information to that found in 15th- and 16th-century Mayan astronomical texts, the authors conclude that Maya astronomical calculation originated in an earlier period than previously thought.

Nearly seventy years ago, a group of competitive explorers, few on good terms, reconnoitred the Maya ruins of Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico. There, in what is now known as Structure 1, they found the most densely figured and compositionally ambitious paintings from Precolumbian America – the Bonampak murals, in a building dated by their final, painted notation to c. AD 791. The themes, events, dramatis personae, dynastic setting and execution of the murals find general consensus among scholars, if with some disagreement about detail and, in some respects, the overall thematic focus of the paintings. A key, under-used resource consists of some 125 texts or captions in hieroglyphic writing that identify, or studiously ignore, the serried warriors, dancers in feathered costumes, courtly ladies, foes in extremis, ambassadors, and lords in repose that crowd the murals. Brought to crisp view by infrared vidicon imaging in 1996, subsequently processed and here reported, the captions pose further questions about the decision to name people, past and present. The typology, positioning, relative weighting and onomastic contents of the captions at Bonampak clarify a veridical story, artfully positioned and cadenced, that stresses a tale of three youths. Likely brothers, they can be seen to enjoy a distinct centrality in the murals, more so than the ruler himself. The Bonampak paintings thus discharge several functions. They offer a specific account of a prince's career, assisted by two young peers, a primer for the skills and accomplishments of a suitable heir, a vertical account of generational interplay at times of transition, and a horizontal lesson, too, that a good prince both leads and relies on brothers, close kin and courtiers for collective success. Whether the path to the throne was completed remains an unresolved matter, insoluble without further evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the issue of color classification in Classic Maya inscriptions. Two specific areas are investigated. First, the author addresses the presence of secondary or complex color terms in the Maya script. Second, the author explores the relationship between representations of color terms as logographs in the Maya scripts and related iconographic motifs. In addition, the article addresses the extensional meanings of Classic Maya basic color terms. The author concludes that Classic Maya written language appears to restrict the description of colors to just five basic terms. References to the book "Veiled Brightness: A History of Ancient Maya Color" are made throughout the article.

Tortuguero Monument 6 is considered to contain the only hieroglyphic text to the date 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaaw 3 Uniiw in 2012. This essay introduces a short text from the site of Comalcalco that possibly opens with the Calendar Round date 4 Ajaaw 3 Uniiw and that the author provisionally identified in 2009. A full epigraphic analysis is presented, and it is tentatively proposed that the date and text may be the second reference to 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maya hieroglyphic texts contain numerous intervals of time that count both backward and forward from a fixed point of historical reference to specific mythological dates, often thousands of years in the past or future. This article considers the evidence that these intervals incorporated precise astronomical calculations of solar, lunar, and planetary movements, with a substantial emphasis on the measurement of the sidereal year and its ability to shift the seasonal position of the Sun among the stars. This analysis requires a specific methodology for assessing the likelihood that these Distance Numbers were either intentionally calculated to incorporate these astronomical measurements or merely coincidental. The evidence suggests that historical dates were directly linked to parallel mythological events in deep time through the use of whole multiples of the sidereal year. Mythological reconstructions of remote astronomical events were conceivably used in a variety of ways that served to link specific Maya rulers and their lineages to the divine actions of the gods and the cycles of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pursues a critical review of the so-called morphosyllabic signs proposed by Houston, Robertson & Stuart in 2001. These are supposed to be syllabic signs carrying meaning to spell grammatical morphemes. I would like to argue from a phonological and grammatological perspective why I believe that morphosyllables cannot work as proposed. By comparing the spelling principles of preposed morphemes with suffixes, I expose a pattern that points to a simple syllabic use in these cases. There are indications that sound integrations at morpheme boundaries are realised by spelling alterations and that the recipient's knowledge of the written language was required to mentally anticipate under-spelled phonemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present one possible reading of the spoken texts on Piedras Negras Panel 3. I suggest that these record a conversation between the young lords arriving from Yaxchilan and the Piedras Negras ruler about the banquet which was organized by an ancestor from Yaxchilan. Also, I propose that the BAT.T528 sign was read as ch'u in the Late Classic period which is productive in various contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the Maya zone, at least from Early Classic times (ca. 250 C.E.), there have been recorded examples of a pair of Mayatoponyms. often in zoomorphic form, prefixed with the numbers 7 and 9. Art Historian George Kubler (1977) was one of the first scholars to discuss this enigmatic glyphic couplet with access to a significant database, but the author (Carlson 1997) substantially increased this database and offered the first decipherment and "reading" of the pair. It is proposed that the "7- and 9-Place" toponyms refer to two ancient, legendary Mesoamerican earth emergence places of elite ancestral origin, one Highland Mexican (e.g., probably in ancient Teotihuacan), which later became the Nahua Chicomoztoc, the "Seven Caves"; the other Lowland (Maya), Bolon Ch'en, the "Nine Wells." It is demonstrated how this early and pervasive cosmogonic couplet was established in the Mesoamerican Lowlands using examples taken from Early Classic Copán, Honduras, to Uuc Yabnal, likely an early name for Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, before the arrival of the Itzá and other peoples during the Epiclassic period. It is proposed that this couplet of sacred, numinous ancestral origin places served to establish a Highland/Lowland legitimacy for at least some major ruling Maya lineages, hypothetically based on real kinship ties. This hypothesis may be tested by future archaeological and epigraphic research. Long-distance pilgrimage as well as trading relationships are proposed in this model as being key to understanding the establishment of basic sacred charters that reinforced the claims of legitimacy and authority of participating elites in the great exchange networks first created across Formative period Mesoamerica (ca. 1200-150 B.C.E.) and beyond. They continued through the Classic (ca. 150 B.C.E.-650 C.E. in the Mexican Highlands), Epiclassic (ca. 650-900 C.E.), and Postclassic (ca. 900-1520 C.E.) periods, surviving right up to and past the Spanish conquest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' views on comments of various persons regarding their article "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," which has been published within the issue. The comments are grouped under two general categories, those from linguistics and the ones from archaeologists. The author states that it is impulsive in the existence of glyphic data to demand relations between the languages spoken nearby and the location of glyphs at the archaeological sites.

The article discusses scholarly studies on the origin and development of the ancient Mesoamerican writing system called Maya that flourished between 600 B.C. to 909 A.D. It discusses how the study in the field of Maya writing advances, driven by the German scholar Ernst Förstemann for his initial elucidation and publication of the Mayan codex in 1880, which was then followed by his study on two Mayan codices that was assumed to date to A.D. 1200-1250. It also discusses the evolutionary context of the Mesoamerican hieroglyphic, its calendric systems, its system of numeration and its inscriptions during the formative period. It ends by contending that further studies of the Mayan is needed to determine the functional linkage of political evolution and early writing.

The article presents the author's views on the research paper "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," by Stephen Houston and colleagues, which has been published within the issue. The author says that the paper identifies various issues regarding the translation of the Mayan writing and its relation to the spoken languages. He states that morphology is overstated in the research work.

The article presents a study which provides a valuable historical perspective on the long-term investigations of the Classic Period Maya collapse. It states that the Maya collapse is one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology. What intrigues this event is the combination of the cultural sophistication attained by the Maya before the collapse.

The author reflects on the phonology and verbal morphology of the Classic Maya inscriptions. According to the author, the Classic Mayan language has been related to Ch'olan language, but other studies have disagreed about the presence of vernacular languages, the degree in which Yukatek was written. The author has presented the comparison of the identification of the language of the Classic Maya inscription and its effect on Maya archaeology and historical linguistics.

The article presents comments by the author on the research paper "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," by Stephen Houston and co-researchers, which has been published within the issue. The author agrees with the conclusion regarding the linguistic affiliation and the history of the Maya script given in the research paper. The author has also mentioned several examples of Mayan linguistics.

The article presents the author's views on the research paper "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," by Stephen Houston and colleagues, which has been published within the issue. There is a possibility that Mayan scribes were trained to write in an ancestral language. The author has stated evidences that defy the resolution for the linguistic domination provided in the research paper. The assertion on Eastern Ch'olan as the language of glyphs should be examined by Mayan linguistic experts.

The article presents the author's views on the research paper "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," by Stephen Houston and his co-researchers. The author remarks that the research implies that inscriptions were written in Ch'orti', one of the least studied Mayan languages, used by the elite class in classic Maya world. According to her, the research reveals that the anti-linguistic bias will affect the understandability of Maya written script and its role within a class-divided society.

A photograph of portions of Mayan inscriptions from the carved steps of the Hieroglyphic Stairway found in Copan, Honduras, is presented.

A photograph of portions of Mayan inscriptions from the Hieroglyphic Stairway found in Copan, Honduras, is presented.

A photograph of portions of Mayan inscriptions from the carved steps of the Hieroglyphic Stairway found in Copan, Honduras, is presented.

The Mayan metropolis of Palenque has been a magnet for adventurers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments by the author on the research paper "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," by Stephen Houston and his co-researchers. The author liked the discussion section of the paper as it focuses on issues relevant to people working on hieroglyphic as well as pictographic writing systems. He states that there were ten different languages spoken in the valley of Oaxaca, Mexico with each having many dialects.

The article presents the author's views on the research paper "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions," by Stephen Houston and colleagues, which has been published within the issue. The author comments on current anthropological topics in which he disregards some epigraphic and linguistic issues. The author feels persuaded to the article's statement over the relationship between Mayan languages. The overview of the development of Mayan languages does not fit international standards.