by Steve Houston
Some months ago I happened to see a remarkable object in a small private collection. It is a stone cylinder c. 12 cm. in height, c 7 cm. in diameter. Mary Miller had also shown me photos of the piece many years ago, in the ‘80s. I did a drawing of [...]
Archive for December, 2007
Of Beads and Cylinders
Posted in Artifacts, Linguistics on December 30, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Alfred Maudslay’s insight
Posted in History of Research on December 18, 2007 | 1 Comment »
While skimming through Alfred Maudslay’s memoir, A Glimpse at Guatemala (1899), I came across this interesting paragraph (p. 255) from his chapter devoted to “The Hieroglyphic Inscriptions,” where he briefly characterizes the nature of the script:
An attempt was . . . made by Landa to construct an alphabet and to give a short example of [...]
An Early Classic Cave Ritual
Posted in Calendar, Caves, Murals, Painting, Rituals on December 11, 2007 | 5 Comments »
by Steve Houston
A few months ago, I happened to visit the Museo Principe Maya in Coban, Guatemala. It is an impressive (and now registered) collection, with dozens of important objects. Few visitors go there, however. The museum lies on a side-street and is unknown, it seems, to the local office of tourism. The staff was [...]
“Hit the Road”
Posted in Linguistics, Tikal on December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
My earlier post on the Tikal ancestor “White Owl Jaguar” included a brief mention of the phrase jatz’ bihtuun, appearing in the long narrative recorded on the exterior of the Temple of the Inscriptions (Temple VI). It’s a rare verb expression, appearing only on that one Tikal text and also on Naranjo Altar 2, [...]
