Breaking the Maya Code - Softcover

Michael D. Coe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140234810 ISBN 13: 9780140234817

Publisher: Penguin (London), 1994

Synopsis

This tells the story of the decipherment of the Mayan script & of those who made the breakthroughs. Years ago, the ruined monuments of Maya civilization were mute, the hieroglyphic inscriptions on stelae, temples & palaces largely unread. Today, thanks to a scientific breakthrough, these inscribed remains are revealing a history lost to humanity for a millennium. What do the glyphs tell us about the Maya world? Why did it take nearly 150 years after the rediscovery of Maya cities to crack the code? Michael Coe is uniquely placed to give the inside story of this revolution in understanding. Himself a Maya scholar, he's known or worked with all the main protagonists. He interweaves a tale of intellectual attack & counterattack with a full overview of what we now know about the ancient Maya themselves. Far from being the simple, peace-loving stargazers of Thompson's imagination, they emerge as a much more complex culture: obsessed with warfare, dynastic rivalries & ritual bloodletting, yet creatures of supreme masterpieces in art & architecture. This is a eadable detective story, an informed account of one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of the age.

About this title

About the Author

Michael D. Coe is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University. His books include The Maya, Mexico, Breaking the Maya Code, Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, and Reading the Maya Glyphs. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

From Scientific American

The decipherment of the Maya script was, Coe states, "one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of our age, on a par with the exploration of space and the discovery of the genetic code." He presents the story eloquently and in detail, with many illustrations of the mysterious Maya inscriptions and the people who tried to decipher them. Most of the credit, he says, goes to the late Yuri V. Knorosov of the Russian Institute of Ethnography, but many others participated. They did not always agree, and some of them went up blind alleys. Coe--emeritus professor of anthropology at Yale University--vividly describes the battles, missteps and successes. What is now established, he writes, is that "the Maya writing system is a mix of logograms and syllabic signs; with the latter, they could and often did write words purely phonetically."

Coe concludes with a swipe at "dirt archaeologists" who believe the decipherment of Maya writing "is not worthy of notice." According to them, he asserts, "the Maya inscriptions are 'epiphenomenal,' a ten-penny word meaning that Maya writing is only of marginal application since it is secondary to those more primary institutions--economy and society--so well studied by the dirt archaeologists." Coe sees that attitude as "sour grapes" and ascribes it to "the inability or unwillingness of anthropologically trained archaeologists to admit that they are dealing with the remains of real people, who once lived and spoke."

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin (London)
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140234810
• ISBN 13: 9780140234817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288