True Writing?
What is "writing"? What you are looking at now is one kind of writing system, an alphabetic one. Alphabetic writing is used in many parts of the world, and alphabets come in many different forms: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew (to name a few). But does writing have to function like an alphabet in order to really be writing?[1] The answer, of course, is no. Nevertheless, debates over what counts as "true writing" have gone on for centuries. Prejudices against (and misconceptions of) non-alphabetic scripts have a long history.
Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example, were long thought to be a mystical form of communication.[2] They were believed to be totally different from the alphabet. This idea arose because of the iconic nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most of these signs are pictures of animals and objects (birds, houses, body parts; Figure 1). Because these pictorial signs look so different from the letters used in the Latin and Greek alphabets, people for centuries believed Egyptian hieroglyphs were a very different (and very strange) form of communication. The word "hieroglyph" means "sacred writing" in Greek. A number of ancient Greek writers described Egyptian "sacred writing" as a metaphorical, non-phonetic script. Although none of these writers had first-hand familiarity with how Egyptian writing communicated, their judgments were very influential.[3] In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as Renaissance Europeans studied the remains of classical antiquity, they interpreted Egyptian hieroglyphs through the mystical lenses of the ancient Greeks. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were also a time of European exploration and colonization. When early modern Europeans encountered non-alphabetic scripts in China and the New World, they often compared these scripts to Egyptian hieroglyphs. As a result, writing systems in both China and the New World began to be referred to as "hieroglyphic." This practice (through the sheer inertia of tradition) has continued up until the present. The shorter word "glyph" was first used by poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1825, as part of a discussion of ancient religious texts. "Glyph" was first applied to Mesoamerican writing a few years later, in C. S. Rafinesque's 1832 "Second Letter to Champollion."[4]
The emergence of the word "glyph" in the 1820s was no accident. It was in the 1820s that Jean François Champollion began to decipher ancient Egyptian texts. He discovered that Egyptian hieroglyphs represented the sounds and words of the Egyptian language. This writing system was not alphabetic, but it was much closer to alphabetic writing than had been assumed. Indeed, a number of hieroglyphic signs represent single sounds, much as in alphabetic writing. Champollion included a chart of this "hieroglyphic alphabet" in one of his early publications from 1822 (Figure 2).
What is especially strange about this history is that, for centuries, Egyptian hieroglyphs were thought to be completely different from alphabetic scripts, even though those hieroglyphs could not be read. It might seem odd that people once made broad claims about the nature of Egyptian writing even thought they couldn't read it. However, this kind of prejudice towards writing systems that don't look like an alphabet is quite common.
Similar prejudices existed—and still exist—against writing systems in the New World. It was long believed that "true" writing systems did not exist in the New World. By "true," many scholars meant (and still mean) phonetic writing systems, systems that can be used to record the spoken word. Alphabetic scripts are one type of phonetic writing, but there are a number of others (see below). As late as 1952, in his influential A Study of Writing: The Foundations of Grammatology, Ignace Gelb proclaimed that "the so-called 'Maya and Aztec writings'" were not "writings proper" but rather "forerunners of writing." He argued that Maya and Aztec scripts conveyed their meaning above all through pictures, pictures that were not closely connected to spoken sounds. He did acknowledge that some signs in Mesoamerican scripts indicated "the beginnings of phoneticization." Still, Gelb continued (in a tortured sentence), "sporadic occurrences of phoneticization cannot be taken as evidence of a high level of the Central American systems since the principle of phoneticization sometimes appears among primitive peoples without any prospects of developing into a full phonetic system."[5] Unfortunately, Gelb didn't really know how to read either Maya or Aztec writing. He, like scholars of Egyptian hieroglyphs before the 1820s, made claims about New World writing even though he didn't understand it.
At the same time Gelb made these proclamations, however, new studies revealed that Maya hieroglyphs were indeed a phonetic writing system (a system closer to Egyptian hieroglyphs than to the alphabetic system you are reading now). More recently—over the past ten years—research by Spanish scholar Alfonso Lacadena shows that Central Mexicans also created a phonetic writing system, with a standardized set of signs corresponding to specific sounds.[6] A number of uses of this phonetic writing system appear in the Matrícula de Tributos (an Aztec document from Tenochtitlan) and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (a Tlaxcalan document from, of course, Tlaxcala).
Relatively speaking, phonetic writing plays a minor role in the Matrícula de Tributos and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala. Most of the images on the pages of the Matrícula and in the cells of the Lienzo make little direct reference to a specific language. This was a conscious—indeed essential—communication strategy. The Matrícula was created to show the tribute brought to Tenochtitlan by people from throughout the Aztec empire, many of who spoke languages very different from Nahuatl (the language spoken by most people in Central Mexico). Because phonetic writing systems require translation in multilingual contexts, it is often more effective to use non-phonetic strategies for writing and documentation. Most of the information recorded on the pages of the Matrícula could be understood by speakers of Mixtec, Otomi, Zapotec, Maya, and even Spanish and English speakers today, five centuries later.
Similarly, the Lienzo was created for both Tlaxcalan and European viewers—not the least of who was Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. The Lienzo was probably painted around 1552, when Charles was still alive—indeed, his coat of arms hangs over the large scene at the top of this document. Charles grew up speaking French and Dutch, and only started to learn Castilian (Spanish) after he inherited a number of Iberian kingdoms from his father and grandfather. But he never learned Nahuatl. Nevertheless, if he ever saw the Lienzo, he would have been able (with help from Tlaxcalan ambassadors) to understand the visual story it told. In other words, phonetic writing systems can be very useful for recording specific languages. But in contexts where many different languages are spoken, other strategies for writing, other forms of communication, can be more effective.
Even though phonetic writing is only one aspect of the Matrícula and the Lienzo, it is an important topic. Research on this theme in Central Mexican writing is only just beginning. As we saw above, for years people thought phonetic writing was absent from Central Mexico. These recent discoveries have revealed unexpected similarities between Central Mexican writing and Maya hieroglyphs—writing systems that for decades were thought to be totally different. Understanding what these phonetic signs say expands our understanding not only of textual matters and linguistic histories, but also of life in the highlands of Mesoamerica in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The following sections of this tutorial therefore focus on phonetic writing systems in more detail, and then briefly compare the structure of Maya hieroglyphic writing with the phonetic messages recorded in the Matrícula and Lienzo.
Phonetic writing systems
Phonetic writing systems allow their users to record precise sequences of sound. They are often used to record spoken languages. As was mentioned above, alphabetic writing is one type of phonetic writing. You are probably reading this very sentence silently, but if you wanted to, you could open your mouth and pronounce it out loud. However, not every phonetic writing system records everyday speech. A number of phonetic writing systems record archaic "prestige languages," ancient tongues seldom spoken aloud or used in everyday interaction. Examples of prestige languages include Renaissance Latin and the language recorded in Maya hieroglyphs.[7]
One way to categorize different types of phonetic writing is to count the number of signs that different systems use.[8] Alphabetic writing systems break languages down into consonants and vowels that correspond to discrete sounds. Alphabetic writing systems usually have between 20 and 35 different signs or letters. The twenty-first-century English alphabet has 26 signs:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The sixteenth-century Castilian (Spanish) alphabet had 27:
abcçdefghijklmnñopqrstuvxyz
A second type of phonetic writing system is syllabic. Here, languages are broken down into signs representing vowels (such as a, e, i, o, u) as well as signs representing syllables (usually consonant-vowel pairs such as ba, be, bi, bo, bu; ca, ce, ci, co, cu; etcetera). These different signs or symbols are combined to form full words, just like alphabetic signs. Syllabic writing systems usually have between 40 and 90 different signs, each corresponding to these meaningful sounds. Linear B, a syllabic writing system used to record an ancient form of Greek, has 87 signs. Linguists and epigraphers often arrange the signs of syllabic writing systems into charts called syllabaries. Figure 3 shows a syllabary for Linear B created by Michael Ventris, who deciphered this writing system in the early 1950s. Like most syllabaries, this chart has one axis for vowels, and another for consonants. The top row of signs within the grid represent vowels: a, e, i, o, and u. The remaining twelve rows show the signs for different consonant-vowel combinations. For example, the second row shows the signs for d- values: da, de, di, do, du. The third row shows the signs for j- values: ja, je, ji, jo, ju. The last row shows the signs for z- values: za, ze, zi, zo, zu.
A third type of phonetic writing system is logographic. Here, signs represent complex strings of sound that form whole words. As a result, logographic writing systems have hundreds or thousands of signs. Sumerian has over 600 signs; Middle Egyptian has over 2,500; Chinese has over 5,000. Significantly, although many "pure" alphabetic and syllabic writing systems exist (that is, systems that use only alphabetic or syllabic signs), logographic writing systems often incorporate syllabic and alphabetic signs in addition to their logograms. As we will see below, this mixture helps the reader to decipher often-opaque logographic signs. In other words, most "logographic" writing systems are actually mixed "logographic-syllabic" or "logographic-alphabetic" systems. Egyptian hieroglyphs, as we saw above, mix logograms with a hieroglyphic alphabet, as well as a series of syllable-like signs.[9] Maya hieroglyphs and Central Mexican writing also use mixed logographic-syllabic sign systems.
In the same year that Gelb declared phonetic to be writing absent from the New World ("the so-called 'Maya and Aztec writings'"), and at the same time Michael Ventris was deciphering Linear B, Soviet linguist Yuri Knorosov published an essay on Maya writing called "Ancient Writing of Central America." Knorosov argued that Maya hieroglyphs were a phonetic system of writing. He offered syllabic translations for a number of words recorded in Postclassic Maya screenfold books (similar to the Codex Nuttall and Codex Selden in Mesolore) dating from between 1250 to 1520. Knorosov's essay was soon translated from Russian into English, and was initially controversial. In the decades which followed, however, Knorosov's work set the foundations for a revolution in the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs. A particularly important essay, Ten Phonetic Syllables, was published by David Stuart in 1987. Stuart deciphered the phonetic values for ten syllabic signs in Maya writing: ts'i, pi, wi, tsi, yi, xa, xi, yo, lo, and hi. In addition, Stuart used these signs to propose readings for longer hieroglyphic words, including terms for scribe (ah ts'ib), mountain (wits), and "to play ball" (pits). At the end of the essay, Stuart included a syllabary (Figure 4). Like the syllabary for Linear B shown above, one axis is for vowels (this time on the vertical axis) and one axis is for consonants (the horizontal). Most of the empty spaces in this chart have since been filled in, and in newer versions the individual cells are much more crowded, because variations for different syllabic signs have been discovered.[10]
More recently, Alfonso Lacadena has published a syllabary for Central Mexican writing (Figure 5).[11] The layout of this chart is much like that for Linear B: vowels form the horizontal axis, and consonants form the vertical axis. Like Stuart's chart from 1987, this syllabary has a number of blank spaces, indicating signs that have not yet been identified. Although incomplete, this chart already allows a many Central Mexican phonetic texts to be read.
The sections that follow provide a basic introduction to the use of syllabic signs in Central Mexican phonetic writing. As a point of comparison, Late Postclassic and colonial texts from Central Mexico are discussed along with Late Postclassic Maya texts from the Yucatan peninsula.
Primary Sources: Paintings and Stones
Maya hieroglyphic writing was used for over a thousand years. The earliest inscriptions appear in the lowlands of what is now Guatemala before AD 250, and the script probably stopped being written in the late 1500s—although isolated appearances of the ahau day sign still appear in nineteenth-century manuscripts.[12] The most famous Maya hieroglyphic texts, on stone monuments and elaborately painted ceramic vessels, were created in the Classic period (AD 250-800). In the Late Postclassic period, the period contemporary with the rise of the Aztec state (AD 1250-1520), Maya hieroglyphic writing seems to have been used above all in painted screenfold books. Three Late Postclassic hieroglyphic codices survive today: the Codex Dresden, Codex Madrid (or Tro-Cortesianus), and the Codex Paris (Figure 6).[13]
Together, these surviving codices preserve several hundred pages of phonetic glyphic texts. In contrast, our sources of evidence for prehispanic phonetic writing in Central Mexico are more limited. Two carved stones and the pages of one document, the Matrícula de Tributos, form the three major sources for Central Mexican writing. All three focus primarily on recording place names. The two round cuauhxicalli (sacrificial stones) were found in downtown Mexico City. One, probably created during the reign of the Aztec emperor Axayacatl (1469-1481), shows the conquest of eleven towns. The names of these towns are written using phonetic signs. [14] The Stone of Tizoc (named after Axayacatl's younger brother and successor, who ruled from 1481-1486) depicts fifteen places being conquered.[15] These include the eleven places shown the stone of Axayacatl, plus four additional locations (Figure 7). Vastly increasing the corpus of prehispanic phonetic writing from Central Mexico are the sixteen folios of the Matrícula de Tributos, discussed in more detail below. These bark-paper pages record hundreds of place names.
Although the prehispanic sources on Central Mexican writing are limited, they are supplemented by several dozen colonial-era documents written in the sixteenth century. By studying the patterns in both prehispanic and colonial writing, Alfonso Lacadena has identified at least two "schools" of Central Mexican writing. One was centered on the island of Tenochititlan-Tlatelolco. Its scribes preferred relatively brief phonetic sequences. The phonetic texts on the Matrícula de Tributos are an example of the writings of this school. The other school was centered on the city of Texcoco, which was located to the east of Tenochtitlan on the shores of Lake Texcoco. Scribes from this Texcocan school wrote longer and more complicated phonetic strings.
The Lienzo de Tlaxcala presents an interesting twist on Lacadena's two schools. He includes the sixteenth-century Codex Xicotepec as one of the writings produced in the Texcocan tradition. Xicotepec was a subject community of Texcoco, and so this codex records the local history of both Xicotepec and Tlaxcala. Geographically, however, Xicotepec is a long way from Texcoco: almost 150 kilometers to the northeast, well outside of the Valley of Mexico. Xicotepec, like Tlaxcala, is located in the Valley of Puebla. (The two cities are 100 kilometers apart; Figure 8). Significantly, extended "Texcoco-style" phonetic inscriptions are found on the Lienzo de Tlaxcala. But Tlaxcala, unlike Xicotepec, did not have direct political ties to Texcoco. This may mean that Lacadena's "Texcocan School" is part of a much larger "Eastern School" of phonetic writing.[16]
Phonetic Writing in Late Postclassic Yucatan
Both Maya and Central Mexican writing uses a combination of logographic and syllabic signs. Both systems join a number of smaller signs into roughly square "blocks." Maya texts usually involve more than one block of glyphs. These blocks are usually arranged in pairs, and are read from left to right, top to bottom, one row at a time. In order to be able to talk specifically about particular glyphs, glyphic blocks are given letters along their horizontal axis and numbers along their vertical axis. This produces a series of number-letter combinations. Figure 9 shows the reading order of hieroglyphic blocks in a detail from page 18b of the Codex Dresden. The reading order of the glyphs begins at A1, then moves over to B1, then moves one row down to read first A2 and then B2. In contrast, Central Mexican phonetic texts are usually limited to single visual blocks, or single strings of signs.
Our discussion of Maya hieroglyphic writing focuses on three images from the Codex Dresden, each of which is accompanied by a brief hieroglyphic caption.[17] The first image, from page 18b, shows a goddess seated on the ground and carrying a horned owl on her back. The second, from page 40b, shows a humanoid macaw holding two torches beneath a rectangular skyband. The third, from 15b, shows a rain god falling head-first towards the earth, carrying a sprouting seed in front of him (Figure 10; see Figure 6 for full images of pages 15b and 18b).
In discussing the hieroglyphs that accompany these figures, we write out their sound values using a transcription system developed by Maya epigraphers.[18] This transcription system has three phases: transliteration, transcription, and translation. Transliterations are alphabetic representations of all the sound values present in a glyphic block. Transcriptions are written in bold face. Logographic signs are written using all capital letters: K'AK', CHAN, MO'. Syllabic signs are written using lower case letters: u, ti, na). When a glyphic block contains more than one element (and they usually do), dashes are used to separate the sound values of each individual glyph: u-K'AK'. Transliterations merge these separate sound values in order to form meaningful words. Transliterations are written in italics: u-k'ak'. Translations are written in a normal font: his fire. As a final point, Maya languages make use of a sound called a glottal stop, which is represented using an apostrophe.
Logograms, as discussed above, are single signs that represent the complex strings of sounds that form whole words. Logograms are sometimes pictorial and iconic, making their meaning easier to identify. The icon provides a picture of what the logogram represents. Block A1 of Figure 11 contains two glyphs.[19] On the left-hand side are three dots and two bars, which represent the number 13 (3+5+5). The main space of the sign is taken up by a picture of the head of a horned owl. This logographic head looks almost the same as the head of the full-bodied owl perched on the shoulders of the seated woman in the scene below. Not surprisingly, this logogram is read KUH and represents the word kuh, owl. Overall, A1 represents the name of the feathered being shown in the scene below: 13 Owl.
The numbered name of another avian supernatural appears in block A2 of Figure 12.[20] This block contains three different units: four dots on the left-hand side (representing the number 4) and then two logograms stacked one atop the other. The lower logogram is a picture of a macaw's head in profile, looking to the left and with its beak open. Once again, this sign is almost identical to the head of the personified macaw right below it. Not surprisingly, this sign is a logogram for mo', macaw, MO'. The sign on top of the MO' glyph is not as easy to decipher visually, but it represents a leafy maize cob drawn on its side. It is read NAL, meaning nal, maize. Overall, the glyph block at A2 gives the name for the supernatural being in the scene below: 4 Nal Mo' or 4 Maize Macaw.
These first examples have involved glyphic blocks that contain only logographic signs. More often, however, logograms are combined with syllabic signs. Directly above 4 Maize Macaw's name, block A1 contains a syllabic sign and a logogram. The syllabic sign is on the left-hand side, and looks a bit like a square bracket: [. This is the syllabic sign for u. Right next to it is a single glyph composed of two parts, a striped oval shape from which 2 curving scrolls emerge. The scrolls represent flames; the sign is read K'AK', and is a logogram for k'ak', fire. Together, the glyphs in A1 read u-k'ak', "his fire"—referring to the torch-wielding macaw in the picture below.
Sometimes the syllabic signs attached to a logogram are not meant to be pronounced. Instead, those signs have been added to help the reader understand the meaning of the logogram. Keeping with the same image, B1 contains three signs. On the left is the syllable ti, followed by the round X-marked logogram CHAN (sky), followed by the syllable na. The final na serves as a "phonetic complement," letting the reader know that the round logogram on top of it must end with an n sound (which in fact it does: CHAN). Because the a sound of the na is not pronounced, it is placed in parentheses in the transcription: ti-CHAN-n(a). These signs are transliterated as ti-chan, meaning "in the sky." Read together, glyphs A1, B1, and A2 therefore read "His fire in the sky: 4 Maize Macaw"— meaning that 4 Maize Macaw's fire is in the sky. (Word order in Mayan, as you can see, is different from word order in English and Spanish—see below).[21] This seems to be a metaphorical phrase related to drought (which is the meaning of the final glyphs at B2). Maya screenfolds were books of divination and prophecy. But whatever its metaphorical meaning, this glyphic inscription is illustrated in the scene below. The humanoid macaw holds flaming torches in both hands, and the fiery tongues of the uppermost torch lick against a long rectangular band that represents the sky. Note that the first part of the band has an X-shape drawn with dotted lines. This is the same X-shape seen in the logogram CHAN, sky, that we looked at in B1. In this image, then, the fire of 4 Maize Macaw is indeed reaching up to burn the sky.
So far we have considered logograms by themselves, and logograms in combination with syllabic signs. Some hieroglyphic blocks were composed using only syllabic signs, and this can be seen in block B1 of Figure 11. This block contains three syllabic signs: the bracket for u that we looked at above, a round sign with a curl inside that is read mu, and a bead-like sign read ti: u-mu-t(i). These three syllables form the phrase u-muut, "her omen." Put together, A1 and B1 read "13 Owl, her omen." This omen belongs to the person named in A2 and drawn with an owl on her shoulders in the scene below. A2 seems to contain a single logogram probably read as IXIK, "woman" or "lady."[22] This may seem a vague name for a goddess, but similar naming can be seen in Spanish-language Christianity: the Virgin Mary is addressed in prayer as Señora, Lady.[23] Put together, A1-B1-A2 read "13 Owl her omen: Lady"—or, the Lady's omen is 13 Owl. Again, this is probably a complex metaphor about the good or bad fortune associated with particular days. But its literal meaning is illustrated quite well in the picture below: the seated goddess carries an owl on her back, its talons buried in the Lady's long ponytail.
Our final example, from page 15b of the Codex Dresden, involves a hieroglyphic text written using only syllabic signs (Figure 13).[24] This example also illustrates the grammatical structure of Mayan languages. English and Spanish sentences usually have a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) structure: I read the book; Yo leí el libro. In contrast, Mayan languages have a Verb-Object-Subject (VOS) reading order. In this inscription, then, A1 contains the verb, B1 contains the object, and A2 contains the subject:
| A1 | B1 | A2 |
| u-pa-k'a-j(a) | tze-n(i) | cha-k(i) |
| u-pak'-aj | tzeen | Chaak |
| he is planting | food | Chaak |
…or, "Chaak (the rain god) is planting food" an act illustrated in the image below.[25] There, the rain god (identifiable by of his long upper lip) falls head-first to the earth, his feet swimming in the air above. He holds out one hand in front of his face, and in that hand is a round glyphic maize seed. Leaves sprout from that seed, as well as from Chaak's hands and feet.
With this introduction, you should have a basic idea of how Maya hieroglyphs functioned as a phonetic writing system. Before moving on to consider the phonetic writing system used at the same time in Central Mexico, there are two points worth mentioning. First, Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions fully spell out the words they were seeking to convey. Indeed, so thorough are Maya hieroglyphic texts that they often contain extra sounds that are to be ignored by the reader. In epigraphic transcriptions, these are indicated by the use of parentheses. Second, Maya glyphs can record fully grammatical sentences (He is planting food, Chaak), as well as complex, multi-part captions (His fire is in the sky: Four Maize Macaw). As we will see now, neither of these aspects of Maya writing is found in phonetic inscriptions from Central Mexico. Central Mexican texts spell only partially the words they are meant to represent, and they do not create whole sentences or elaborate captions through the combination of long strings of phonetic signs. Instead, Central Mexican phonetic texts partially record single words, in isolation.
Phonetic Writing in Late Postclassic and Colonial Central Mexico
In the Maya examples above, we focused on 3 images from the Codex Dresden. To discuss Central Mexican writing, we focus on two folios from the Matrícula de Tributos (9v, showing the tribute province of Cihuatlan, and 15r, showing the tribute province of Tlatlauhquitepec) as well as a number of cells from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Figure 14). In spelling out Nahuatl words, we will use orthographies from both the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. This can be confusing at first, but is easily understood after some practice. For example, the word for reed was usually written acatl in the sixteenth century, with a and c. According to contemporary linguistic spelling, however, it is written akatl, with a and k. Similarly, the word for woman was written cihuatl in the sixteenth century, but is written siwatl using current orthography.[26]
As in Maya writing, the Central Mexican script uses a number of logograms. A very simple one appears as the place sign for Xiuhuacan, "Place that Has Turquoise" (Figure 15). This name is represented by a single blue glyph for turquoise (xiuhtl), read XIW.[27] Transliterated, this sign is read Xiw[tepec]. As you can see, only the very first part of the name Xiuhuacan is represented glyphically. This is something we will see again and again in Central Mexican writing: in contrast to Maya script, words are only partially spelled out.
The town of Iztepec, "Hill of Obsidian," is represented with two logograms: a curved black rectangle, representing an obsidian blade (itztli) and a green bell-shaped hill (tepetl). Together, these signs are read ITZ-TEPE (Figure 16) This is a more complete phonetic rendering than we saw above for Xiuhuacan, but the final –c sound is still not represented.[28]
A third example, from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, shows the town of Itzquintepec, "Hill of the Itzquintli" (a type of hairless dog). Together, these two signs read ITZKwIN-TEPE. Like the place name for Iztepec, the final –c sound is not represented.
As in Maya writing, Central Mexican logograms were sometimes accompanied by phonetic complements, redundant syllabic signs that helped the reader. The town of Cihuatlan, "Place of Women," is depicted with a drawing of a woman's head (cihuatl)(Figure 18). This is read SIWA. Her cheek, you will notice, is painted with a black bar. This was the syllabic sign for wa. Together, these signs are transcribed as SIWA-wa, with the wa serving only to confirm for the reader that the woman's head represents a logogram ending with the sound wa. The woman's head could, of course, have been used to represent the word for head (tzontecomatl) instead of the word for woman (cihuatl). The final wa syllable makes this reading clear. This place sign is therefore transliterated as Siwa[tlan]. Once again, note the curious spelling. The scribe has overspelled the first part of the name of Cihuatlan—SIWA-wa—but has not represented the final –tlan sound.
A second example of the use of syllabic signs as phonetic complements is found in the place name for Ayotochco, "On the Armadillo" (Figure 19). A logographic sign for an armadillo (ayatochtli), read AYATOCH, is prefixed with a blue water (atl) glyph, which is the syllabic sign for a: a-AYATOCH. Perhaps this water sign was added so that the armadillo was not confused with a rabbit (especially because this armadillo drawing has very rabbity ears and long teeth). As with the example of Cihuatlan, the first part of this place name is overspelled, but the final –co is not indicated visually.
In other cases, syllabic signs are not silent when combined with logographic signs. These syllabic signs function as actual syllables in the word being represented. The town of Apancalecan, "Place of House Canals," is represented using the watery syllabic sign for a that we just studied, as well as the house-shaped logogram for CAL (Figure 20). This creates a fractured spelling. Less than half of this name is represented phonetically: A[pan]cal[ecan]. A much more complete spelling is found in the name of Petlatlan, "Place of Mats" (Figure 21) This is represented by the logogram for woven mat, PETLA, and the syllabic sign for tla (shaped like a pair of teeth, tlantli). Since the logogram PETLA ends with the sound tla, it is possible that the pair of teeth are functioning as a phonetic complement. However, since the place name in question includes two –tla sounds (Petlatlan), it is more likely that the teeth are meant to represent the second syllable of this place name: Petla-tla[n]
The combination of logograms and syllabic signs also apperars in personal names from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala. In Cell 27, the name of the Tlaxcalan leader Citlalpopoca ("Smoking Star") is written using the logogram for "star" (citlalin), read SITLAL, and the multiple curls of smoke which form the sign po (Figure 22).[29] In Cell 48, the name of a Mexica noblewoman (and wife of Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor) is written using the syllabic sign te, the flowerlike logogram ICHCA (from the word cotton, ichcatl), and finally the syllabic sign po. Together, the signs te-ICH(CA)-po are meant to spell the name Tecuhichpo, "Lord's Maiden" (from tecuhtli, lord, and ichpochtli, maiden).[30] The use of the cotton-shaped logogram ICHCA is quite interesting. In the examples we have looked at so far, the sound of a logogram was meant to indicate the word of the thing that logogram depicted. The star-shaped logogram SITLAL was pronounced sitlal and was meant to refer to the word for star (citlalin), because it was used to indicate a name that meant "Smoking Star." In contrast, the name Tecuhichpo has nothing to do with cotton. In this example, the cotton logogram is being used only for its abstract phonetic sound, and not for its association with cotton. Technically, the cotton-shaped logogram shoud be read ICHCA. In the transcription case, however, since the final C and A are not part of the sounds in the name Tecuhichpo, those letters have been put in parentheses: ICH(CA). The same strategy was used for redundant sounds in Maya hieroglyphs.[31]
Finally, and again like Maya writing, some words were written using only syllabic signs. But even in these cases they are underspelled. The town Atenco, "On the Shore," is represented using the water syllable a and a stone sign for the syllable te: a-te (Figure 24). The town Teziuitla, "Place of Hail," is spelled with the stone for te, a blue shell for si, and the pair of teeth for tla: te-si-tla (Figure 25). In Cell 28 of the Lienzo, the name of the Tlaxcalan lord Maxicatzin is written using a hand for the syllable ma and an image of water gushing out of a disk for the syllable ka: ma-ka (Figure 26). And in Cell 11 the palace of Moctezuma I is labeled with a drawing of a man (apparently a full-figured drawing of the old man's head that represents the syllable we), a stone sign for te, a ceramic jar for ko, a lobed clump of clay for tzo, and a hand for ma (Cell 27).[32] Together, these signs are transcribed as we te-ko-tzo-ma, transliterated as we[we] [mo]tecotzoma, and translated as "Old Moctezuma." (Huehueyotl was the sixteenth-century Nahuatl word for old).[33]
Writing Borrowed Words: Links between Postclassic Yucatan and Central Mexico
The first decipherments of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion in 1822 were achieved by using a clever strategy. He focused on the Rosetta Stone, a carved inscription written in three different scripts: alphabetic Greek, a calligraphic form of Egyptian called Demotic, and, at the bottom, the famed Egyptian hieroglyphs.[34] Champollion guessed that the stone presented the same proclamation three different times, in three different scripts. This presentation in triplicate would make it possible for speakers of different languages (or, more accurately, readers of different scripts) to understand what the stone said. The Greek inscription was in the 1820s easy to read, and it contained a number of non-Egyptian names, such as Alexander and Cleopatra. (Alexander the great had conquered Egypt in 332 BC, and for several centuries thereafter the region was ruled by a dynasty from Macedonia). Because these names had been brought to Egypt from elsewhere, the Egyptian hieroglyphic system would not have had preexisting representations for them. Champollion guessed that Egyptian scribes would therefore have spelled out these exotic names using phonetic signs. This guess proved correct, and formed the basis for the decipherment of thousands of other hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Personal names have been important in the decipherment of many different writing systems, including Linear B.[35] We therefore end with a fascinating hieroglyphic spelling on page 49 of the Codex Dresden. The Aztecs never conquered the Yucatan (where Mayan speakers have lived for centuries), and so places from that region are not included in either the Matrícula de Tributos or the Lienzo de Tlaxcala. Nevertheless, these two areas were not as separated as the geographic visions in the Matrícula and Lienzo suggest.
The Codex Dresden contains a number of almanacs about the planet Venus. Page 49 illustrates one of the manifestations of Venus as the morning star (Figure 28). Surprisingly, this figure's costume and face paint look a lot like the costume and face paint of a fire deity worshipped in Central Mexico, Xiuhtecuhtli ("Fire Lord"). The face of this god appears on folio 8r of the Matrícula de Tributos, where he forms part of the place sign for Xocotitlan (Figure 29). Xiuhtecuhtli's drawing has been damaged, but if you look carefully you can see that he wears the same style of face paint as the incarnation of Venus in the Codex Dresden: thin black lines across the eye and across the cheek. The hieroglyphic inscriptions above the deity on Dresden 49 make his identification as a form of Xiuhtecuhtli even stronger, and suggest that this supernatural had been imported to the Yucatan from Central Mexico (Figure 30). The deity's name is spelled out using the logogram CHAK and the syllabic signs xi-w(i)-te-i. In Mayan, Chak means red, and the xi-w(i)-te-i string of syllables are probably read xiwtei. This may be an attempt to spell the foreign Nahuatl name Xiuhtecuhtli.[36] The name "Red Xiwtei[cuhtli]" is certainly appropriate for a fire deity.
A number of recent studies have focused on the connections linking the Maya region to Central Mexico.[37] The image and xi-w(i)-te-i spelling on page 49 of the Codex Dresden offer a fascinating example of how a small detail, the spelling of a single name, can point to much larger phenomena: the exchange of words, the adoption of foreign gods, and the interactions of distant places.
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Boone, Elizabeth Hill. 2000. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Braswell, Geoffrey E., ed. 2003. The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting the Early Classic Interaction. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Champollion, Jean-François. 1822. Lettre à M. Dacier. Paris: A Fontfroide.
Chavero, Alfredo. 1892. Explicación del Lienzo de Tlaxcala. In Homenaje á Cristóbal Colón: Antigüedades mexicanas. México: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento.
Chuchiak, John F. 2004. The Images Speak: The Survival and Production of Hieroglyphic Codices and Their Use in Post-Conquest Maya Religion, 1580–1720. In Maya Religious Practices: Processes of Change and Adaption, 71-103. Saurwein Verlag: Markt Schwaben.
Coe, Michael D. and Mark Van Stone. 2005. Reading the Maya Glyphs. Second Edition. London: Thames and Hudson.
Gardiner, Alan H. 1927. Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Gelb, Ignace. 1952. A Study of Writing: The Foundations of Grammatology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Graulich, Michel. 1992. On the so-called 'Cuauhxicalli of Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina' the Sánchez-Nava Monolith." Mexicon 14(1): 5–10.
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Houston, Stephen D. 1997. The Shifting Now: Aspect, Deixis, and Narrative in Classic Maya Texts. American Anthropologist, New Series, 99(2): 291-305.
Houston, Stephen D., John Baines, and Jerrold Cooper. 2003. Last Writing: Script Obsolescence in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica . Comparative Studies in Society and History 45(3): 430-479.
Houston, Stephen D., John Robertson, and David Stuart. 2000. The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions. Current Anthropology 41(3):321–56.
Houston, Stephen D., David Stuart, and Karl A. Taube. 1989. Folk Classification of Classic Maya Pottery. American Anthropologist 91: 720– 726.
Houston, Stephen D., and Karl A. Taube. 1987 "Name-Tagging" in Classic Mayan Script: Implications for Native Classifications of Ceramics and Jade Ornament. Mexicon IX:38-41.
Iversen, Erik. 1961. The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in the European Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Karttunen, Frances. 1992. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Lacadena, Alfonso. 1997. Bilingüismo en el Códice de Madrid. Los Investigadores de la Cultura Maya 5:184-204.
Lacadena, Alfonso. 2008a. Regional Scribal Traditions: Methodological Implications for the Decipherment of Nahuatl Writing. The PARI Journal 8(4): 1-23.
Lacadena, Alfonso. 2008b. The wa1 and wa2 Phonetic Signs and the Logogram for WA in Nahuatl Writing. The PARI Journal 8(4): 38-45.
Lacadena, Alfonso and Søren Wichmann. 2008. Longitud vocálica y glotalización en la escritura jeroglífica náhuatl. Revista Española de Antropología Americana 38(2): 121-150.
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Lockhart, James. 2001. Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl with Copious Examples and Texts. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Figures
1. Egyptian hieroglyphs at Luxor. Note the weave-patterns carved into the round hieroglyph in the shape of a basket.
2. "Table of Phonetic Signs of the Hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts of the ancient Egyptians." Plate IV of Jean-François Champollion's 1822 Lettre à M. Dacier.
3. Syllabary of Linear B, from page 23 of Michael Ventris and John Chadwick's 1956 Documents in Mycenaean Greek.
4. "A Maya Hieroglyphic Syllabary," from pages 46-47 of David Stuart's 1987 Ten Phonetic Syllables
5. Alfonso Lacadena's Nahuatl Syllabary.
6. Pages 15b-18b of the Codex Dresden. Like the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, the Codex Dresden no longer exists. It was destroyed in the city of Dresden during World War II. The images used in this tutorial are (like the images of the Lienzo de Tlaxcala) from an early lithographic facsimile.
7. Line drawing of the scenes that run around the edges of the Stone of Tizoc. Place signs have been labeled (in this detail) c-j. Note that the ground is represented as the personified Earth; two rectangular flint-filled mouths, each framed by round eyeballs, open up to the scenes of warfare above. From Manuel Orozco y Berra's 1877 "El cuauhxicalli de Tizoc."
8. Map of Texcoco, Xicotepec, and Tlaxcala. The former location of the now-dried Lake Texcoco has been highlighted in blue. Tenochtitlan was located on an island in the middle of this lake, indicated here with a white dot.
9. Detail of a scene and hieroglyphic caption from page 15b of the Codex Dresden, with the reading order grid superimposed.
10. Details of the Codex Dresden, from pages 15b (left), 18b (center), 40b (right).
11. Detail from page 18b of the Codex Dresden.
12. Detail from page 40b of the Codex Dresden.
13. Detail from page 15b of the Codex Dresden.
14. Folios 9v and 15r of the Matrícula de Tributos.
15. The place sign of Iztepec in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 15r).
16. The place sign of Xiuhuacan in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 9v).
17. The place sign of Itzquintepec in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Cell 79)
18. The place sign of Cihuatlan in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 9v).
19. The place sign of Ayotochco in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 15r).
20. The place sign of Apancalecan in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 8v).
21. The place sign of Petlatlan in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 9v).
22. The name Citlalpopoca in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Cell 27).
23. The name Tecuhichpo in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Cell 48).
24. The place sign of Atenco in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 15r).
25. The place sign of Teziuitla in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 15r).
26. The name Maxicatzin in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Cell 28).
27. A palace labeled as having belonged to Wewe Moctezumain the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Cell 11).
28. Venus god from page 49 of the Codex Dresden. His hieroglyphic name has been highlighted.
29. The place sign of Xocotitlan in the Matrícula de Tributos (folio 8r).
30. The hieroglyphic name of the Venus god from page 49 of the Codex Dresden.
[1] For debates on how to define "writing," and their relation to Mesoamerican scripts, see Boone 2000, 28-63.
[2] Hamann 2008.
[3] Iversen 1961, 28-46.
[4] Hamann 2008, 6.
[5] Gelb 1952, 54.
[6] Lacadena 2008a, 2008b; Lacadena and Wichmann 2008.
[7] Houston et al 2000, 336.
[8] Coe 1992: 41.
[9] Egyptian "biliteral signs" represent two sounds, and "triliteral signs" represent three sounds; Gardiner 1927, 38, 44.
[10] An excellent syllabic chart is provided at the end of Coe and Van Stone 2005; I have used this to verify the phonetic readings of Maya glyphs in this tutorial. Coe and Van Stone's book is a good, general introduction to reading Maya hieroglyphs.
[11] Lacadena 2008a, 23.
[12] Houston et al. 2003, 463-4; Chuchiak 2004.
[13] Vail and Aveni 2004. A fourth document whose authenticity has been doubted, the Grolier Codex, does not include phonetic hieroglyphs.
[14] Graulich 1992.
[15] Orzco y Berra 1877.
[16] Lacadena is aware that more research outside the Valley of Mexico is needed: "One must not forget that there may have existed other traditions, other schools of scribes, possibly also centered in the capitals which held political power in the region, such as Tlaxcalla, Huexotzinco, or Cuauhtinchan"; Lacadena 2008, 13.
[17] This discussion makes use of three main resources: the Maya Hieroglyphic Codices website (http://www.mayacodices.org/), Michael D. Coe and Mark Van Stone's Reading the Maya Glyphs (Coe and Van Stone 2005), and Martha J. Macri and Gabrielle Vail's The New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs, Volume Two (Macri and Vail 2003). Because this is meant as an introductory text—on Central Mexico!—I have not used the elaborate diacritical marks used in more formal linguistic studies. I have also favored Ch'olti' spellings instead of Yukatek ones. For an introduction to the debates surrounding the language recorded in the Maya screenfolds, see Lacadena 1997 and Wald 2004.
[18] Coe and Van Stone 2005, 19.
[19] The reading of this hieroglyphic text has been adapted from the Maya Codices Website (http://www.mayacodices.org/frameDetail.asp?almNum=339&frameNum=1), with modifications based on Coe and Van Stone 2005, 157-166 and Macri and Vail 2003.
[20] The reading of this hieroglyphic text has been adapted from the Maya Codices Website (http://www.mayacodices.org/frameDetail.asp?almNum=368&frameNum=8), with modifications based on Coe and Van Stone 2005, 157-166 and Macri and Vail 2003.
[21] The structure of this phrase, and the phrase on 40b that we will study shortly, seems very similar to the name-tagging inscriptions found on Classic Maya portable objects; see Houston and Taube 1987, Houston et. al 1989.
[22] Coe and Van Stone 2005, 117-118.
[23] J. Eric S. Thompson (1970, 241-242) points out that honorary titles like "Lady" were commonly used for Maya deities, and even claims that one title, Culel ("Mistress") was used in the Yucatan to refer to both the Moon Goddess and to the Virgin Mary.
[24] The reading of this hieroglyphic text has been adapted from the Maya Codices Website (http://www.mayacodices.org/frameDetail.asp?almNum=335&frameNum=1), with modifications based on Coe and Van Stone 2005, 157-166 and Macri and Vail 2003.
[25] Cell B2 seems to contain one of Chaak's noble titles. On the translation of the –aj ending, see Houston 1997.
[26] Lacadena 2008a, 6.
[27] Lacadena 2008a, 21.
[28] Exactly Nahuatl writing used abbreviation is unclear. Lacadena (2008a, 14) includes this as one of the three features that distinguish the Nahuatl writing system from other logosyllabic systems such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Linear B, and Egyptian and Maya hieroglyphs.
[29] This analysis is based on an original suggestion by Chavero 1892, 52.
[30] This analysis is based on an original suggestion by Chavero 1892, 78.
[31] See Lacadena 2008a, 13-14 the case of PAIN. A logogram of footsteps is read PAIN, based on the term paina, "to run fast" (Lockhart 2001, 229). This logogram is often used to represent the locative –pan (in, on), and so in transcription the effectively silent I is placed in parentheses: PA(I)N. For this convention in Maya epigraphy, see Coe and Van Stone 2005, 19.
[32] This reading is based on suggestions made by Alfredo Chavero in 1892 (Chavero 1892, 30). He, following Aubin, assumed these signs were based on a use of rebus principles. Recent work by Alonso Lacadena, however, has shown that all of these signs were part of a standardized syllabic system (Lacadena 2008). Significantly, the syllabic value of the lobed "lump of clay" sign as tzo- (from zoquitl, clay or mud) is not included in Lacadena's 2008 syllabary chart (see Karttunen 1992, 349). This value was suggested by Chavero in 1892, and is confirmed by the use of the clay sign as tzo- in the place sign for Tzoquitzinco in the Matrícula (f. 7r) and Codex Mendoza (f. 33r). See Berdan and Anawalt 1992, 186.
[33] Karttunen 1992, 84.
[34] The Rosetta stone was not the only hieroglyphic monument that Champollion studied, but it is the first one he talks about in his path breaking Lettre à M. Dacier; Champollion 1822, 4. See also Gardiner 1927, 14-15 and Coe 1992, 37-41.
[35] Ventris and Chadwick.
[36] Whittaker 1986, Taube and Bade 1991, Macri and Looper 2003, 287-288.
[37] Braswell 2003, Macri and Looper 2003, Vail and Hernández 2010.
