Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 9, 2006 13:33:51 GMT -5
Earliest Mayan writing found beneath pyramid
/Archaeologists struggle to decode 2,300-year-old hieroglyphics
www.uctp.blogspot.com/
/
ANTIGUA, Guatemala (Reuters) -- Archaeologists excavating a pyramid
complex in the Guatemalan jungle have uncovered the earliest example of
Mayan writing ever found, 10 bold hieroglyphs painted on plaster and stone.
The 2,300-year-old glyphs were excavated last April in San Bartolo and
suggest the ancient Maya developed an advanced writing system centuries
earlier than previously believed, according to an article published
Thursday in the journal Science.
The glyphs date from between 200 B.C. and 300 B.C., and come from the
same site in the Peten jungle of northern Guatemala where archaeologist
William Saturno found the oldest murals in the Mayan world in 2001.
Radiocarbon tests indicate the writing is 100 years older than the
murals depicting the Mayan creation myth.
The glyphs, thin black paintings on off-white stucco, lay in a plastic
tub in a laboratory in an old house in the colonial city of Antigua on
Thursday as archeologists cleaned and cataloged other stones from the
San Bartolo site.
Although the writing is mostly indecipherable, Saturno and his team
claim one glyph could be an early version of the word "ajaw," or "ruler."
"People have long been hoping to find a carved stone monument from this
period of the Maya," said Mary Miller, a Mayan art expert at Yale
University.
"It turned out not to be carved in stone but instead associated with
this incredible complex of early paintings," she said. "It's as if we
were to find pictures of Jesus on the cross from the time when he was
really alive."
The pyramids at San Bartolo were constructed over several centuries,
with newer structures built over the old. Guatemalan archaeologist Boris
Beltran discovered the hieroglyphic writings by accident while
excavating a structure buried deep below the room housing the ancient
murals.
The archaeologists say some of the glyphs are pictorial, with one
resembling a hand holding either a brush or a sharp instrument to draw
blood.
"We can't read this stuff because it's so early," said David Stuart of
the University of Texas at Austin, who co-wrote the paper in Science
with Saturno and Beltran. "It's even more exotic looking than the known
Mayan glyphs."
"It's like trying to read some of the writing in medieval manuscripts or
handwriting from the 1500s. Even though it is our same writing system we
don't recognize it," Stuart said.
Stuart said the newly discovered script resembles text used by
neighboring people during the Mayan late pre-classic and early classic
periods, raising questions about the relationships between ancient
Mesoamerican civilizations.
"I think the Maya participated in the invention of writing much earlier
than thought," Stuart said. "As cities began in Mesoamerica around this
time, writing was a part of that, just like public art and presentation
of political ideology. It's all part of a package."
The Mayans dominated southeastern Mexico and much of Central America for
thousands of years until the Spanish conquest 500 years ago. Their
descendants still live in the region.
Saturno announced last month he had uncovered the most elaborate wall of
a 2,000-year-old mural, likened to the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, at San
Bartolo.
The complexity of the writing found at San Bartolo indicates that even
earlier glyph examples could be uncovered in the future.
"The history of the origins of Mesoamerican writing are not resolved by
this find," Saturno said. But the recent discoveries in Guatemala
clearly show "that the full story has not yet been told."
/Archaeologists struggle to decode 2,300-year-old hieroglyphics
www.uctp.blogspot.com/
/
ANTIGUA, Guatemala (Reuters) -- Archaeologists excavating a pyramid
complex in the Guatemalan jungle have uncovered the earliest example of
Mayan writing ever found, 10 bold hieroglyphs painted on plaster and stone.
The 2,300-year-old glyphs were excavated last April in San Bartolo and
suggest the ancient Maya developed an advanced writing system centuries
earlier than previously believed, according to an article published
Thursday in the journal Science.
The glyphs date from between 200 B.C. and 300 B.C., and come from the
same site in the Peten jungle of northern Guatemala where archaeologist
William Saturno found the oldest murals in the Mayan world in 2001.
Radiocarbon tests indicate the writing is 100 years older than the
murals depicting the Mayan creation myth.
The glyphs, thin black paintings on off-white stucco, lay in a plastic
tub in a laboratory in an old house in the colonial city of Antigua on
Thursday as archeologists cleaned and cataloged other stones from the
San Bartolo site.
Although the writing is mostly indecipherable, Saturno and his team
claim one glyph could be an early version of the word "ajaw," or "ruler."
"People have long been hoping to find a carved stone monument from this
period of the Maya," said Mary Miller, a Mayan art expert at Yale
University.
"It turned out not to be carved in stone but instead associated with
this incredible complex of early paintings," she said. "It's as if we
were to find pictures of Jesus on the cross from the time when he was
really alive."
The pyramids at San Bartolo were constructed over several centuries,
with newer structures built over the old. Guatemalan archaeologist Boris
Beltran discovered the hieroglyphic writings by accident while
excavating a structure buried deep below the room housing the ancient
murals.
The archaeologists say some of the glyphs are pictorial, with one
resembling a hand holding either a brush or a sharp instrument to draw
blood.
"We can't read this stuff because it's so early," said David Stuart of
the University of Texas at Austin, who co-wrote the paper in Science
with Saturno and Beltran. "It's even more exotic looking than the known
Mayan glyphs."
"It's like trying to read some of the writing in medieval manuscripts or
handwriting from the 1500s. Even though it is our same writing system we
don't recognize it," Stuart said.
Stuart said the newly discovered script resembles text used by
neighboring people during the Mayan late pre-classic and early classic
periods, raising questions about the relationships between ancient
Mesoamerican civilizations.
"I think the Maya participated in the invention of writing much earlier
than thought," Stuart said. "As cities began in Mesoamerica around this
time, writing was a part of that, just like public art and presentation
of political ideology. It's all part of a package."
The Mayans dominated southeastern Mexico and much of Central America for
thousands of years until the Spanish conquest 500 years ago. Their
descendants still live in the region.
Saturno announced last month he had uncovered the most elaborate wall of
a 2,000-year-old mural, likened to the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, at San
Bartolo.
The complexity of the writing found at San Bartolo indicates that even
earlier glyph examples could be uncovered in the future.
"The history of the origins of Mesoamerican writing are not resolved by
this find," Saturno said. But the recent discoveries in Guatemala
clearly show "that the full story has not yet been told."