Ancient Mayan hieroglyphics discovered
How can you not love ancient history? I wonder if they discovered more about 2012 from these hieroglyphics, or was it just a coincidence that the Mayans decided to stop writing their calendar when they got up to 2012.
Ancient Mayan hieroglyphics discovered
Friday Jan 6 12:34 AEDT
Hieroglyphics discovered in an ancient Mayan temple in Guatemala date to the third century BC, showing Mayan writing developed much earlier than believed, according to research published Thursday.
The hieroglyphics, found on a block of stone in the Mayan pyramid Las Pinturas in San Bartolo, northeastern Guatemala, were dated to 200 to 300 BC, placing Mayan writing together with the earliest examples of script elsewhere in Mesoamerica, said the study published in the January 6 edition of Science.
Researchers led by anthropologist William Saturno of the University of New Hampshire examined the writings on a fragment of painted block from a room richly decorated with polychrome murals deep inside the pyramid.
The block had ten Mayan hieroglyphs painted in heavy black lines on top of white plaster. Although clear in their rendering, deciphering the writing “remains a challenge”, the researchers said, because they date centuries before the earliest fully legible Mayan writings.
One of the glyphs was clearly recognized and understood from later Mayan texts as the title “ajaw”, meaning “lord” or “noble” or “ruler”.
Others appeared to be pictorial, one suggesting a hand holding a brush or a blood-letting instrument.
Still others were abstract and unfamiliar, the scientists said, “probably ancestral to components of later Maya script”.
The radiocarbon dating of wood associated with the script on the block placed it between 200 and 300 BC, much older than the 100 BC-100 AD dating previously established for the earliest Mayan writing.
The discovery raises new questions about the relationship of Mayan writing to the previously understood oldest script of the region, Epi-Olmec used by neighboring peoples to the west, the study said.
Established writing systems in what is now Oaxaca, Mexico and elsewhere have been dated to 400 BC.
“It now appears that the Maya also participated in the Pre-classic cultures of literacy, and at a significantly earlier date than previously believed,” the study said.
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