The “happen” verb is uht, still found today in Ch’olan languages and in Yukatekan as uch. The hieroglyphic spelling is u-ti, which can take many visual forms, mainly since there are a great number of different u signs scribes could make use of (as described in the NOVA show). These glyphs for uht are very, very common, and often combine with records of dates, as in “it happened, 3 Ajaw 3 Mol,” and so on.

I am curious about a statement made in the recent NOVA program regarding the translation of the phrase “and then it happened”. How often do you see this introductory phrase on stele or elsewhere, and is there a standard glyph which represents that phrase, or are there many glyphs you’ve encountered which have that essential meaning (as so many phrases in ancient mayan seem to have)?

Thank you for a very interesting blog!

John

Thanks for those questions. I realize this may be controversial, but my objection to using the term in Maya iconography hinges on the so-called “Vision Serpent.” Linda Schele began using this label in the 1970s and 80s in reference to large supernatural snakes, such as the famous ones we see on Lintel 25 of Yaxchilan, or in numerous other art works. She and others saw them as symbols of “hallucinatory visions central to Maya ritual” (The Blood of Kings, p. 46), but this has never sat well with me. Rather than see the fantastic snakes as actual hallucinations supposedly brought on by the physical affects of bloodletting, I prefer to see them as key symbols in the art of transformation and supernatural contact. They had many multi-layered meanings, as celestial symbols, and as conduits for the conjuring and “birthing” of deities and ancestral spirits. Seeing them as “visions” and “hallucinations” takes away, for me, their important and internally logical role in Maya art and iconography. To be honest, use of the term “vision quest” also smacks a little bit of the way we like to package the complexities of Native American ritual experience, even if we accept Maya rites were somehow parallel to “vision quests” from North America (and I think they were very different, anyway).

This is one of those complex topic that probably deserves its own critical essay, but I hope this answers a little for now.

You ask good questions, and sorry it has taken me so long — a month! — to reply. When you wrote I was in the field at San Bartolo.

In all honestly we don’t know much at all about Pre-Classic Maya script. Some signs can be easily equated with Classic variants, while others at San Bartolo and elsewhere seem altogether unfamiliar. It gets especially tricky when we are dealing with what we think are syllabic elements. That is, we can equate logograms without too much trouble, but I have yet to find or feel comfortable with one syllabic spelling at San Bartolo or in any Pre-Classic text. Logograms seem to abound.

The supposed po / mo / ja elements you mention, from the north wall of San Bartolo Mural 1, are a case in point. They do seem like syllables, and I and others had considered, as you suggest, that the po and mo were perhaps spelling “incense” (pom). Now this turns out to be unlikely. The supposed “po” element was mis-drawn (by yours truly), and checking the original painting at the site a few weeks ago, I noticed that there is much more to it, at least enough to steer away from a po identification. My sense is that these signs might also be logograms, naming the standing figure nearby.

There are many more texts at San Bartolo to ponder, some just unearthed in the last few weeks, so lots of analysis awaits.

Thanks for your great questions.

I recently visited the Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. What was a curious visit turned into a great surprise. This is because the Young Museum has on display two of the most beautiful stone carvings from the Maya world I had ever seen.

The two works of art - one large stela and one panel- are beautifully carved and well preserved. They both have what appears to be a substantial amount of hieroglyphic texts on them. Their museum description, however, lists their provenance as “unknown, Mexico or Guatemala”, which in my mind says nothing, as this description covers most of the Maya world.

However, they appear to have a distinctive style and be made of a specific type of stone, which could at least place them in a narrower region or time period (in my *inexperience*, they look like monuments from the Usumacinta or La Pasion). Knowing a little more about them would add so much life and context to these works of art.

Have you seen these carvings, and have you translated them at all?

Many thanks and congratulations on your achievements and on this blog, which brings the fascinating world of Maya decipherment to ordinary people like me, who are passionately interested in this culture.

Best regards,

Antonio Fuentes