Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: Introduction

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Author: Thompson, John Eric Sidney (1898-1975) Year: 1950 Publisher: Carnegie Institution of Washington Place: Washington, D C Description: xvii+347+[64] with frontispiece, figures, map and index. Quarto (11 1/2" x 9") bound in original publisher's wrappers. Publication 589 Carnegie Institution of Washington. First edition. In this series of essays Thompson reviews extant knowledge on Maya writing, gives rich comment, and reworks anew the entire field in search of material that may give clues to decipherment. His approach is revealed in the following quotation. “In this volume I have tackled the problem of decipherment in what I deem to be a new way, although one which has in it elements which have been tried before. It is my conviction that we shall interpret the glyphs only by relying heavily on the beliefs, the religious symbolism, the mythology, and to a lesser extent the everyday activities of the Maya, because such concepts surely are imbedded in each glyph . . . Argument must be from the known to the unknown, and for that reason many pages are given to elucidating the meanings of the day names and other signs, the names and functions of which are known.” All these phases are discussed, linguistic clues are investigated, and the pictorial and graphic qualities of the glyphs themselves are analyzed at length. Thus the author makes an intense dual study of both the ethnology of the ancient Maya and of the morphology of the hieroglyphs, in a search for inter-linkages t

• Binding: Hardcover

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