Posted in Calendar, Tonina on November 30, 2007 | No Comments »
Back in 2002 I pointed out the appearance of a strange calendar cycle mentioned in three inscriptions at Tonina, apparently equaling a span nine solar years (9 x 365 days, or in Maya notation, 9.2.5). Stations in this cycle are marked in the inscriptions with a distinctive glyph, depicting a human profile head with [...]
Posted in Calendar, Tonina on November 28, 2007 | No Comments »
Juan Yadeun’s excavations at Tonina, Chiapas, have revealed a number of beautiful stucco glyphs that once formed an inscription of at least 25+ blocks, most now on housed at the regional site museum, with several others on view the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. On a recent visit to the MNAH [...]
Posted in Preclassic, San Bartolo on November 18, 2007 | 3 Comments »
A few newly unearthed hieroglyphic texts from San Bartolo, all Preclassic in date, exhibit a distinctive curved “whiplash” line that runs beneath and along the right side of some signs. This may represent little more than artistic flair, but the line could also hold some meaning or function still unclear. When visiting the [...]
Posted in Reflections, opinion on November 18, 2007 | No Comments »
Something a bit off-topic, but maybe interesting…
Nearly a year ago Slate.com approached Steve Houston to pen a review of Mel Gibson’s 2006 film Apocalypto. Steve was kind enough to bring me on board as co-author, since I had seen an rough-cut of the movie the previous September here in Austin, and even had the chance [...]
Posted in Linguistics, Tikal on November 4, 2007 | No Comments »
Illustration file: whiteowljaguar-figs.pdf
“White Owl Jaguar”: A Tikal Royal Ancestor
The long inscription on the façade and roof-comb of Tikal’s “Temple of the Inscriptions” (Str. 6F-27) receives little attention these days, but I find it one of the most interesting and unusual of Maya texts (see Figure 1). Its odd placement on the back of [...]
