He is the manifestation of life, a talisman in this proximity. Translation/Transliteration of the Olmec plain signs. The following is a copy of the decipherment I sent to Steede in 1984: I included a translation of the Malinke inscription on the right-hand side of the T1-452 R16 brick, and the Olmec/Mande signs found inside the Mayan glyphs. I sent a copy of my decipherment of T1-452 R16 to Steede. Below is the division of the T1-452 R16 text:ĭivision of the T1-452 R16 text. He then divided the inscription into three segments we were both to decipher and we began our work. To test this hypothesis, I suggested to Steede that he decipher the Mayan inscription, and I would decipher the Olmec passage which had been partially defaced. I immediately recognized that the T1-452 R16 brick appeared to include both Mayan and Olmec inscriptions. He did this to determine if I could identify the writing on some of the bricks which Steede thought looked like scripts from the Old World. Alexander von Wuthenau advised Steede to send me copies of the images of the bricks before his publication of the Comalcalco Catalogue. There are two additional characters on the far right hand side of the brick which are also written in the plain Olmec style of writing.ĭr. The plain Olmec style of writing was usually used to inscribe celts and other Olmec artifacts. The Olmec writing used on this brick is in the plain style. This brick has a bilingual Mayan-Olmec inscription, with the Mayan inscription on the left and an Olmec/Malinke inscription on the right-hand side. One of the bricks, T1-452 R16, is a particularly fascinating artifact for those interested in Olmec-Mayan connections.Ī photo of brick T1-452. Steede published many of the inscribed bricks from the Comalcalco ruins in a bilingual book entitled Preliminary Catalogue of the Comalcalco Bricks. Neil Steede became interested in the bricks in 1979 and he obtained permission to photograph them from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). (Alfonsobouchot/ CC BY SA 4.0 ) Intriguing Bricks Inside the Great Acropolis of Comalcalco, Tabasco, Mexico. Birds, Stones, and Jaguars: Piecing Together the Multifaceted Ancient Olmec Religion.Does the Cascajal Block provide evidence of a written language of the Olmecs?.For example, "The Great Acropolis" was probably used for civil and religious practices. In addition to the fine temples, walls, and altars, elaborate “stucco” was used to face the constructions, which resemble images on the sub-pyramids of many Mayan sites and have analogy to Olmec iconography. This Mayan site has interesting architecture which served an important purpose. Nine of these pyramids were excavated between 1977-1978. Almost all the structures were built of fired bricks (tabiques). The Comalcalco site encompasses around 360 pyramids. Archaeologist Neil Steede found over 4000 inscribed bricks at this site.Ĭomalcalco archaeological site, Tabasco, Mexico. It was built by the Chontal and is the only ancient Maya city in Mexico entirely built in brick. Comalcalco is a Mayan archaeological site found in Tabasco, Mexico. Support for my decipherment of the Olmec writing comes from a bilingual Mayan-Olmec/Mande inscribed brick from Comalcalco (“in the house of earthenware" in Nahuatl). One of the most important documents used in my research was a Bi-lingual Mayan-Olmec text inscribed on a brick. In my book, Olmec Language and Literature, I explain how I deciphered the Olmec language.
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