The Information Super-Frog

Pre-Columbian Maya books and their decipherment, a cartoon history by Andy Warner. From "The Nib", 2016.

https://thenib.com/mayan-codices/

Pretty good! Some obligatory nitpicking:

* For scholarly use, “Maya” should be both the noun and the adjective unless one is talking about the language. (”Mayan” or “Mayans” was long considered a shibboleth of dubious or sloppy fringe writing. Better magazines, newspapers, etc generally followed the scholarly usage... up to the deluge of articles in 2012 connected with the turn over of the Maya Long Count calendar cycle, the supposed “Mayan Apocalypse” (sic), when most outside of academia seem to have given up.)
* “There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of codices”. A conservative estimate! Early explorers reported entire “libraries” of them. Conquistadores considered burning them, along with smashing idols, as part of their sacred duty of conquest of the Pagans. Archaeologists discovering tombs of ancient Maya nobility often find rectangles of white and colored stucco dust - the frustrating remains of ancient books after all organic material has rotted away.

Some oversimplification:
* Numbers were deciphered in the 19th century, then gradual but significant work was done by indentifying various common nouns and terms by function - sort of like if another civilization discovered the ruins of 20th century restrooms, the pictograms for male and female identified as functionally equivalent of the spelled out letters “MEN” and “GENTLEMEN” / “WOMEN” “LADIES”, even if they had no idea exactly how the alphabet worked or how to pronounce the words. Then being able to recognize those strings of letters in other contexts.

Missing that nuance led to something simply wrong:
* Proskouriakoff’s piecing together dynasties of Maya rulers was brilliant work - but done by recognizing the function of glyphs for “birth”, “coronation”, “death” etc. While happening about the same time as Knozorov’s phonetic breakthroughs, it was unrelated, being rather the last great discovery of functional research on Maya glyphs, the approach which went back to the 19th century.

Still, pretty good! Check it out!

(starting an occasional series of posts of personal memories long before blogging or Usenet)

In 1977, supposedly bright boy that I was, I was taking college classes at the age of 16, in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Between sessions I made a series of trips around the Yucatan Peninsula with Ms. B., from my perspecitive an exotically wise and worldly woman of 22.

We traveled by train, bus, and hitch-hiking. I have never hitch-hiked anywhere other than Yucatan.

We were on our way to Izamal, a Colonial era town built over one of the largest pre-Colombian Maya ruins. We were riding in the cab of a produce truck we'd flagged down. Our route visiting a series of other towns took us into Izamal not by the main highway, but along a road comming from the north. From miles away we could see the remains of the Izamal's great pyramid, so large that the Spanish Conquistadores decided it was too much trouble to level and they contented themselves with putting a cross on the top. As we got closer, the second highest building of the city was visible-- a yellow Colonial Spanish Convent, built atop the old Maya acropolis. Then on the outskirts of town, we stopped. The road was blocked by a train. Who knows how long it would be, so we thanked our driver and got out to walk.

It was a passenger train. We walked up the steps of the back balcony (what's the term?) of one of the passenger coaches and back down the other side to get to the other side of the train. We looked around and suddenly realized the train was pulled by a steam locomotive. A series of horse drawn Victorias were meeting passengers at the train to take them to the center of town.

There were no automobiles visible. Other than details of clothes fashion of the people, we could turn around 360 degress and see nothing to contradict the impression that we had suddenly traveled back in time a century. I have never since had so complete an experience of sudden unexpected time travel.

****

We later took the steam train back, just to take it. When I returned to the Yucatan in the 1980s I was disappointed to see the old locomotives replaced by much less picturesque diesels. What happened to the old trains?, I asked. I was told they were "sold to Walt Disney".

Hyped publicity gimmick:

Telegraph: New Seven Wonders picked after global vote

Bah. Chichen Itza got in. Dang; Ms Hollie and I have been discussing a trip to Yucatan sometime in the next year or so; now Chichen is going to be even more mobbed with tourists. Chichen has serious niftyness, but as Maya ruins go, Tikal is much larger and Uxmal, Palenque, and Copan are certainly more beautiful.

The description of Chichen on the contest website isn't even up to the standards I'd expect from the text on the back of an off-brand souvineer postcard. Dubious neologisms for major structures; I presume "the Playing Field of the Prisoners" is the Great Ball Court. WTF?

Worst choice on the list: Cristo Redentor in Rio. Sorry, as a non-Christian, I've seen some beautiful sculptures of Jesus, but that ain't one of them. Years ago, my old neighbor, aviation pioneer Walter Hinton, showed me some marvelous aerial photos he took of Rio de Janeiro -- back before this lovely natural setting was ruined with that ugly-assed uninspired giant touchdown Jesus. Declared a "Wonder", now the eyesore will likely NEVER get torn down or replaced with anything better.