Ka in maya glyphs12/5/2023 ![]() Each block is composed of one or more signs, most of which possessed a strong pictorial quality throughout their history. A text is typically arranged in a grid-like fashion, or by a linear arrangement of the same square blocks that are a basic formal unit of the system. Anyone glancing at a Maya inscriptions would be immediately struck by the sheer complexity of the visual forms of the script itself-the "look" of the Maya script is in fact difficult to compare with any other. ![]() The Nature of Maya WritingĪ few words on the nature of Maya writing are appropriate as background for understanding the literate culture of Copán in ancient times. What we must not fail to remember is that the results of these investigations has pushed back the historical record of the New World some fifteen hundred years. Certainly enough is known to allow us to step back from the details of deciphering to consider what the Maya had to say about their own society and history. Between these extremes lies the majority of inscriptions at Copán and elsewhere, which are generally understood with regard to content, even if a number of words or names are unreadable. Some texts are perfectly legible and can be read aloud in Mayan more or less as they were written centuries ago others may be completely opaque to us, and may never be read in their entirety. At present some 60 to 70 percent of the Maya inscriptions can be read with a reasonable degree of accuracy, this principally being the result of an ever-increasing refinement in our understanding of the workings of the ornate Maya script, as well as a better accuracy in reconstructing the Mayan language of the inscriptions from its modern descendants. ![]() The decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs is still advancing rapidly, although much remains to be done at Copán and other sites. Text from a 1996 article by David Stuart. Recently, this great progress in deciphering Copán's inscriptions has not only revealed surprising facts about the local royal history, featuring the rituals and reigns of individual kings over a four-hundred year period, but it has also opened several doors on Maya culture as a whole. The large number of texts at Copán, nearly all on large stone stelae or altars, have given scholars a large amount of texts to be compared and studied, and these texts have played a significant role in the overall effort to break the Maya code. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that Copán has long been a focus of intensive epigraphic investigation. For its relative small size (many other sites in the Maya lowlands are physically larger), the amount of inscribed materials at Copán are truly astounding, suggesting that in some way the elite culture of this ancient kingdom was particularly interested in literate culture and whatever that entailed. Copán ranks among the most important of Maya sites for many reasons, but foremost among these is its vast number of hieroglyphic texts.
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