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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.)

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]