MEPFOHP MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFOHD, OREGON THURSDAY, MARCH 21. 1H3 g y
IrHieroglyphics CHIold Secrets otf Aftaycm Civilizotoom)
By ROBERT MUSEL
United Piesi International
London - IUPI) - Elementary
my dear Sherlock Holmes.
If you had the corpse and
the clues and all you had to
do was put them together
and nab the culprit.
Now, if you want to meet
a real detective, come with
me to the little village of
Ashron in Essex, to an Ed
wardian manse just up the
road from the half-timbered
tudor headquarters from
which Oliver Cromwell or
dered the overthrow of the
British monarchy three cen
turies ago.
This is the home of Dr. J.
Eric S. Thompson, recently
of the Carnegie Institution in
Washington who (with other
archeologists elsewhere) is en
gaged in a feat of detection
infinitely more difficult than
ever was dreamed by the master-sleuths
of fiction.
Dr. Thompson is trying to
decipher the hieroglyphic
writings left behind by the
Maya people who flourished
in the forest of Guatemala,
Honduras and Mexico from
about 200 A.D. to 900 A.D.
and then mysteriously vanish
ed into obscurity.
The Spanish conquerers of
the 16th Century found the
remnants of the Maya and
were the first to marvel at
the mighty ruins of the only
civilization in history that
came into being in a tropical
forest.
CentUries later came the
scientists such as Dr. Thomp
son and they took up the chal
lenge of the Maya language
as it has come down to us
in the hieroglyphic carvings
of a thousand or so monu
ments and in the first "books"
written on the American con
inent. So far the language remains
mostly a mystery although
over the years the Maya sys
tem of numbering and dating
has become clearer.
They had, these frugal peo
ple who lived in thatched huts
in the shadows of their great
stone cathedrals, an obsession
with time.
But the vital clue to what
really happened to the Maya
nation of 3,000,000 somewhere
about 900 A.D. when its temp
les began to fall into decay
and its civilization into dis
array eludes the "detectives."
There is always the thought
that it may be locked some
where in the stone carvings
or in the three existing books
found among the stone ruins
built on a scale rivalling
many of the shrines and pyra
mids of ancient Egypt.
No Alaphabet
Apparently they did not
have an alphabet. Thus there
will never be a Maya "rosetta
stone." This was a slab carved
in Egyptian hieroglyphics
with a translation in Greek
which made it comparatively
easy for scientists to solve
the written language of the
Pharoahs.
Obviously the priest ruler
of a Maya city knew what
he wanted when he ordered
his scribes or sculptors to re
cord certain events. But it is
evident the artists had the
widest license in interpreting
his instructions in stone or
paint.
Dr. Thompson said he knew
of one glyph which had been
"written'1 down at least 80
different ways!
So in a sense he and other
Maya experts are faced with
the problem of reading the
mind of a priest ruler as a
Maya artist dead 1000 years
or more.
It is an enigma so fasci
nating and the scientific ku
dos fo. translating the lang
uage will be so great that the
Russians turned over one of
their electronic computers to
Prof. Yuro Knorozov in the
hope he would beat Dr.
Thompson and the rest of the
world to a final solution.
In due course Prof. Knoro
zov triumphantly announced:
"The Marxist-Leninist ap
proach has succeeded In de
ciphering the glyphs."
Claim Success
Later on he referred to Dr.
Thompson, the distinguished
author of "Maya archaeolo
gist", and his colleagues of
Carnegie as "lackers of Amer
ican imperialism."
"But of course he didn't
decipher many of the glyphs,'
Dr. Thompson smiled. "Ac
tually he also used those
translations we have managed
to get. When the fanfare fad
ed so did Prof. Knorozov."
Dr. Thompson, a youthful
64 (these scientist veterans
of the disease-ridden Central
American Jungles must be a
sturdy lot one of them was
killed in a traffic accident
in Paris at the age of 109
when he turned to look at a
pretty girl) put the problem
this way:
"The Maya used Rebus
writing. If you want to write
'I see Aunt Peg' in Rebus
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your draw a picture of an
eye, some waves, an ant and
a peg. If the Mayas were con
sistent about it we might get
somewhere but consider this
example: .
Rebus Writing
"The word for 'count' is
XOC (pronounced shock).
XOC also means a mythical
shark who lives in the skies.
To present the word 'count'
the Mayans at first drew the
head of this shark. But draw
ing a shark's head every time
they wanted the word count
must have become a nuisance.
So they apparently figured
something along these lines:
A shark lives in water. Wa
ter is green and precious.
Jade, our most valuable pos
session, is also green and
precious.
"So a jade bead became
the sign for 'count'!"
Where the deciphers havs
had most success is in '
the Mayan fascination with
time and dates. Bishop Diego
de Landa who wrote a his
tory of Yucatan in 1560 Dro-
vided invaluable background
nere for he found some des
cendants of the Mayas who
helped him translate glyphs
relating to their astonishing
calendar.
Dr. Thompson said this
records specific dates back
more than 90,000,000 years.
It is more accurate in spac
ing out a century than even
our own Gregorian calendar.
In 1,000 years of studying the
revolutions of Venus the
Mayas made an error of only
one day.
They studied the heavenly
bodies because they believed
history always repeated itself
and if they could discover
when tragedies had taken
place they could avert them
by propitiating the Gods with
sacrifice and penance when
they were due to happen
again.
Tell Llttla .
Other than dates and as
tronomical Information very
little has been drawn from
the glyphs and the three sur
viving books brought back
during the Spanish conquest
and deposited in Dresden, Ma
drid and Paris.
Dr. Thompson said "so far .
as we know" the monuments
and altar carvings deal ony .
with the end of regular pe
riods of time five, ten or 20
years and contain astronom- '
leal and calendrtcal calcula
tions and information about
the Gods.
The three books (bark beat
en a kind of thick paper) are
almanacs of sorts giving ad
vice on which days are good
for health or sowing crops ,
or tor hunting. Soma scien-;
Usts think the prophecies
might reveal historical data
because the Mayaa believed
the future is only a return of
what occurred in the past.
Popular scientists like to
theorise that the end of the
Maya civilization came sud
denly and the people dispers
ed, Dr. Thompson does not
believe this. The Mayas (who
probably reached Central
America about 2,000 B.C.
from Asia) may have revolted
against their priests who had
taken up the cult of the planet
Venus instead of maintain
ing the good graces of the
old gods of corn and tne sou.
Defaead Temples
They wrecked or defaced
many of the great temples and
massacred the prist-rulers.
Then they dispersed Into the
forests to their small com
munities of thatched huts.
They were decimated centur
ies later, in Dr. Thompson s .
view, by disease from the old
world.
The Mayans excelled in
the impractical," Dr. Thamp.
son said, "but they failed in
the practical. They charted
the heavens yet they failed
to grasp the principles of the
wheel. They counted in mil
lions but they never learned
to weigh a sack of corn."
The Mayans made rubber
soled sandals and rubber-
proofed rain capes. They were
the first to cultivate cocoa,
the papapa, the avocado pear. -They
had a curious idea of
beauty. They deformed their
heads by elongating the
crown. A large nose, drooping
lower lip and slightly reced
ing chut were other beauty
marks.
In warfare they used "nor-
net bombs" they threw hor
nets nests at the enemy.
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