Late Preclassic Inscription Documentation Project

www.famsi.org

Reports Submitted to FAMSI:
David F. Mora-Marín

Late Preclassic Inscripti= on Documentation Project
Date Posted: A= ugust 15, 2001
Vea este inform= e en Español.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Need for LAPIDA
Project Design and Methods
Results Achieved to Date
Comparison of Drawings
Art History and Paleography
Preliminary Epigraphic Discussi= on
Conclusions
Addendum
List of Figures
Sources Cited

David F. Mora-Marín
davidmm@unc= .edu

Late Preclassic Inscripti= on Documentation Project

Introduction

This report concerns the current status of the Late Preclassic Inscription Documentation (LAPIDA) Project that I am conducting with support from FAMSI and other organizations.¹ I designed LAPIDA with one short-term objective in mind: to collect accur= ate data for my dissertation research, which deals with the orthography and grammar of Late Preclassic Mayan texts. During my research I have observed that some of the published drawings of Late Preclassic monumental and portable texts are sometimes inaccurate in details that could affect epig= raphic study. For this reason, I decided to undertake the primary documentation = of the subset of Late Preclassic texts that I think are more amenable to epigraphic study.

In the following paragraphs I justify the need for this project, explain its methods, present the results achieved = so far, and offer a preliminary discussion of some of the data. I conclude w= ith a suggestion for the expansion of LAPIDA into a long-term project for documenting early inscriptions from throughout Mes= oamerica. The goals of the expanded LAPIDA would be to collect accurate data releva= nt to understanding the origin and spread of Mesoamerican scripts, and to ai= d in their decipherment.

Endnote

1.= In addition to funding from FAMSI, my LAPIDA Project has also been supported with grants from the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, t= he Benevolent Association, and the Graduate Student Organization at the State University of New York at Al= bany. I have conducted research at the following museums and collections: the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the Yale Art Gallery, the Fidel Tristán Jade Museum in Costa Rica, the National Museum of Costa Rica, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Peabody Museum, the Princeton Art Museum, and the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethno= logy in Guatemala City.

The Need for LAPIDA

The need for the LAPIDA Project requires explanation, since published drawings for many of= the texts relevant to the study of early Mayan writing already exist. For instance, at least two drawings of the Brooklyn Museum of Art jadeite pectoral mask have been published: one in Covarrubias (1957:figure 94) (Figure= 1), and one in Schele and Miller (1986:150-151, Plate 45) (Figure= 2). But when both drawings are compared with the photograph in Soustelle (1979:Plates 60 and 61) (Figure= 3), it can be appreciated that they lack certain details, which I have includ= ed in the final drawing published here for the first time (Figure 4, shown below).

Another case is the drawing of the Dumbar= ton Oaks quartzite pectoral published in Coe (1966:figure 11). Among the deta= ils missing in his drawing is a crucial one for determining the linguistic affiliation of this text. A comparison of Coe’s drawing of the glyp= h at C6a, and my own drawing of that glyph (Figure= 5) can show this: Coe’s drawing is missing an example of T1 7u inside T126 ya. This phonetic spelling of the preglottalic third person singular ergative/possessive prefix, 7u-ya for 7uy-, has important implications: only Cho= lan and Yucatecan innovated an 7uy- allo= morph of this prefix in Mayan. Indeed, Tzeltalan and Greater Kanjobalan have y- but not 7= uy-; other Mayan languages have r- (Great= er Quichean), t- (Greater Mamean), or <= span class=3Dtext-underline1>in- (Huastec). Using the previous drawing,= such a narrow discrimination would not be possible.

Project Design and Methods

The procedure involves the following six steps: (i) photograph scanning and processing, (ii) enlarged laser printo= ut, (iii) field notes and sketching, (iv) inking of drawing, (v) scanning of drawing, and (vi) publishing of drawing in printed and online media.

First, a photograph of the text is scanne= d at high resolution, and the image is enhanced (increasing focus or sharpness= ) as needed (Figure 6). (I have used Adobe Photoshop for the imaging process). Starting out with a black-and-white photograph (i.e., grayscale), if the incised glyphs are dark (e.g., filled in with red or black pigment) and surrounded by a lighter surface (e.g., light green mineral), an enlarged-scale laser printout is produced at this point. However, if the incisions are light (e.g., white pigment) and surrounded by a darker surf= ace (e.g., dark green mineral), the image is first inverted into its negative= , so the incisions become dark and easier to see through tracing paper (Figure 7). If a color photograph is used, it may be useful to scan the photograph in color rather than grayscale; once scanned, it is possible (= with Adobe Photoshop) to view the image under different filters: Red, Blue, Gr= een, and RGB (all three). If the incised glyphs are filled in with red pigment, for example, applying the Blue filter may enhance the contrast and make f= or a more suitable image. Inverting the image to its negative may also improve= the contrast, as in the case with grayscale photographs.

Then, an enlarged laser printout is produ= ced. The enlarged printout is taped to a portable drawing board, and tracing p= aper is taped on top of the printout. Using a pencil, loupes of different magnifications, and ideally one or two separate portable or movable light sources, the inscription is sketched through first-hand examination of the artifact. The sketching is done on the tracing paper that lies on top of = the enlarged printout of the photograph of the text (Figure 8). The light sources allow one to enhance the light-shadow contrasts of incisions, when applied at oblique angles with respect to the inscribed surface, and from different directions (i.e., raking light assi= st). Gloves (cotton or disposable latex) should be used when handling the obje= ct.

Later, an enlarged photocopy or laser printout of the field drawing of the text is produced (Figure 9). Tracing paper is taped on top of the photocopy or printout, and the drawing is traced with ink using a light table. The images produc= ed (photographic and line art) are scanned and ready for on-line publication= , or photocopied for dissemination by other means (= Figure= 10). One of the aims of this interim report is to fulfill this last step.

Results Achieved to Date

Included in this report are final drawing= s of the following early texts (abbreviations are provided, see = Addendum):

1. &nbs= p; Dumbarton Oaks ja= de pectoral (= Figure 10, DO pectoral).

2. &nbs= p; Dumbarton Oaks ja= deite celt (Figure= 11, DO celt).

3. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade spoon (Figure= 12, JM spoon).

4. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 4444 (Figure= 13, INS 4444).

5. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 4443 (Figure= 14, INS 4443).

6. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 4442 (Figure= 15, INS 4442).

7. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 4441 (Figure= 16, INS 4441).

8. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 4440 (Figure= 17, INS 4440).

9. &nbs= p; Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 2007 (Figure= 18, INS 2007).

10. <= /span>Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 2006 (Figure= 19, INS 2006).

11. <= /span>Jade Museum slate disk No. 6= 528 (= Figure= 20, INS 6528).

12. <= /span>Jade Museum jade plaque No. = 4563 (Figure= 21).

13. <= /span>La Fortuna slate = disk (Figure= 22, LF disk).

14. <= /span>Peabody Museum<= /st1:PlaceType> at Yale jaguar figurine (Figure= 23, PMY jaguar).

15. <= /span>Cenote tubular ja= de bead (Figure= 24, CNT 6125).

16. <= /span>Cenote tubular ja= de bead (Figure= 25, CNT 22001).

17. <= /span>The lower glyphic= panel of Hauberg Stela (Figure= 26, Figure= 27, Figure= 28, and Figure= 29, HBG stela).

18. <= /span>The lower glyphic= panel of Kaminaljuyú Stela 10 (Figure= 30, KJ Stela 10).

19. <= /span>Brooklyn Museum o= f Art jade mask (Figure 4, BMA mask).

For some drawings I have not had the bene= fit of first-hand observations yet, but I have used published high-resolution photographs to improve upon previously published drawings. The following drawings are thus only preliminary:

20. <= /span>Hatzcap Ceel jade= axe (Figure= 31, HTZ axe).

21. <= /span>Kendal jade axe (= Figure 32, KND a= xe).

22. <= /span>An unprovenanced = jade clamshell (Figure= 33, UNP clamshell, K763).

23. <= /span>The Pomona jade earflare (Figure= 34a, and Figure= 34b, PMA flare).

24. <= /span>The British Museum pectoral (<= span style=3D'mso-bookmark:"Link_to_Figure_35\._The_British_Museum_pe"'>Figure= 35, BM pectoral).

25. <= /span>The Cleveland Museum<= /st1:PlaceType> jade plaque (Figure= 36, CM plaque).

26. <= /span>A jade plaque reportedly from Nosara, Nico= ya, Costa Rica (Figure= 37) published in Stone (1968:figura 9).

27. <= /span>An unprovenanced = jade plaque reportedly from Costa Rica (Figure= 38) published in Stone (1977:68, figure 78c).

&nbs= p;

My dissertation research focuses on the following four inscribed artifacts: DO pectoral, JM spoon, PMY jaguar, and UNP clamshell. I discuss other texts, but in less detail. Next I discuss = the differences between my drawings of these texts and the previously publish= ed drawings.

Comparison of Drawings

Several drawings of the DO pectoral text (Figure 10) have been published, including: Coe (1966:figure 11), Schele = and Miller (1986:120), and Mora-Marín (1997:figure 3). The final drawi= ng presented here differs from these three as follows. The main differences between Coe’s (1966) drawing (Figur= e 39) and Figure 10 are in C2, D2, and C6a; between Schele and Miller’s (1986) drawing (= Figur= e 40) and Figure 10 are in A2b, D1, C2, D2, D3, and C6a; and finally, betw= een Mora-Marín’s (1997) drawing (Figur= e 41) and Figure 10 are in A2b, C2, D3, and C6a. Of these, the ones pertaining = to A2b, D1, and C6a are the most important ones for epigraphic purposes.

=
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It is worth mentioning that the DO pectoral’s original cinnabar pigment has been replaced by a nontoxic counterpart. During the curation process, the cinnabar was removed, and t= he new pigment applied using pre-curation close-up color slides as guides. A= fter curation, some of the intentional incisions were not refilled, and are therefore no longer visible under normal room lighting without magnificat= ion or light manipulation. Also, some of the scratch marks on the pectoral’s surface were accidentally filled in.² My drawing takes into account only the intentional incisions, most of whi= ch are visible in the photograph in Coe (1966:figure 2), and in the pre-cura= tion color slides on file at Dumbarton Oaks; it should therefore be compared w= ith those sources.

Two different drawings of the JM spoon ha= ve been published: a drawing by Dorie Reents-Budet (Figur= e 42) partially published in Anderson (1993:113), and my earlier drawing (F= igure 43) published in Mora-Marín (1997:figure 5). Figure 12= , my more recent drawing, represents an improvement over the previous two.³ It shows several signs and sign details missing from glyphs A2, A3, A7, a= nd A8 in Reents-Budet’s drawing. The main differences with respect to = my previous drawing lie in the renderings of A1a and A3d. The glyph at A1a is partly effaced, and so the reconstruction of A1 is uncertain.⁴

Coe (1973:25) published a photograph and a line drawing of the PMY jaguar text (Figur= e 44).⁵ The photograph does not show the lower four rows of glyphs very clearly. = Upon inspection of the artifact, I realized they have experienced more damage = than the top four rows, a fact that Coe’s drawing indicates through stippling. The drawing I have prepared (Figure 23) differs from Coe’s drawing in several details, a few of whi= ch are of likely epigraphic significance:= ⁶ the extra details and apparent suffix to glyph B7; and an apparent suffix= to glyph A8.

The dimensions, provenance, and current location of the UNP clamshell (K763) are unknown to me.⁷ The only previous drawing of the text is by John Montgomery (Figur= e 45), and is partially published in Anderson (1993:112-113);⁸ it is for the most part accurate, but lacks a few small details, two of w= hich are of likely epigraphic significance and which I have filled in my drawi= ng (Figure 33).⁹ One is a detail in the form of a nostril in the sign at A6a. This s= hows the sign at A6a depicts a nose. Also, the sign at A6b consists of two elongated elements; I think they could be fingers, one of which may show a fingernail, but this is unclear.

I intend to discuss the rest of the drawi= ngs I am providing here for the first time at a later date. The FAMSI grant I received has allowed me to complete the following drawings: the JM spoon,= INS 4442, INS 2007, INS 6528, PMY jaguar, CNT 6125, CNT 22001, the Hauberg St= ela, Kaminaljuyú Stela 10, and the UNP clamshell.¹⁰

Art History and Paleography

Accurate drawings of Late Preclassic texts can aid not only in decipherment, but also in the development and refinem= ent of a paleographic chronology for the Mayan script. Such a framework can assist in the relative dating of unprovenanced texts and in tracing impor= tant historical changes, and is therefore of great importance. The research I = have conducted with support from FAMSI should prove very useful for achieving = this goal.

The early development of graphic forms and orthographic rules in the Mayan script have been discussed in Justeson and Mathews (1990), Grube (1990; 1994), and Lacadena (1996). In my dissertati= on I discuss several key cases relevant to the study of the four texts mention= ed above. Some of the graphic and orthographic developments discussed by the authors mentioned above may prove more useful than others. The following = are just a few examples.

The U-shaped element can serve as a good point of departure, given its presence in a large number of different sig= ns, and also, its recognizable mutations through time. This widespread use in Mayan signs, as Lacadena (1996) has described, led to a chain shift of graphic change involving signs with the U-shaped element during the Early-to-Late Classic transition. The change in question involved the sub= stitution of the original U-shaped element inside a cartouche for a circular elemen= t, and later still, the addition of two small circles on the outside of the cartouche. The earliest Mayan texts can provide additional data relevant = to the historical development of these elements.

For example, the DO celt text, with the proposed date of A.D. 120 (Schele and Miller, 1986:83), has two examples = of the U-element inside a hand sign and inside the likely predecessor of T168 (cf. B4 and A7). Several other undated and unprovenanced early texts also exhibit this element: the BMA pectoral, CNT 6125, the JM spoon, the PMY jaguar, the UNP clamshell, and the PMA flare, among others. The BMA pecto= ral (A2a) and the CNT 6125 (A2, A4c) both exhibit the use of the U-element. T= he JM spoon has two examples of the U-element, but both in the same sign (A3a, A8a); no other signs in this text are signs where the U-element is likely= to occur in later texts. The UNP clamshell has one instance of the U-element= , in the same sign as the occurrence in the JM spoon (cf. A7a). The DO pectoral has one iconographic occurrence of the U-element, but no glyphic ones.

The Protoclassic PMA flare shows four gly= phic (i.e. rather than iconic) occurrences of the U-element: two in the SUN.GOD glyph (A2/B1), one in T840 (D1a), and one in T710 (D1c). Interestingly, t= he lower glyphic panel of KJ 10 may contain a case of the U-element at F3, in the same glyph as D1c of the PMA flare. If one takes into account the iconography of the glyphs in the PMA flare, one can witness the free variation relationship between the U-element and the O-element inside the (T62) earflare worn by the two instances of the SUN.GOD glyph; this varia= tion may have started in the iconography, and subsequently intruded into the glyphic domain, although only further study can determine this.

Lastly, the PMY jaguar contains one clear example at A2. Moreover, the PMY jaguar text may constitute a missi= ng link in the history of the glyphic use of the U-element. It exhibits both= the U-element typical of Mayan signs and the double-stub element more common = in Epi-Olmec signs (but also present in some Mayan signs, as in the upward-pointing FLAT.HAND sign, cf. Tikal Stela 31). More importantly, I think that the PMY jaguar examples show that the double-stub element is simply a form of the U-element: the double-stub element is identical to t= he U-element if the last is placed along the outline of a glyph, rather than centered inside a cartouche. This text could be of significance, for this reason, in the study of the relationship between the Epi-Olmec and Mayan scripts. It suggests a time and place when and where both forms were in f= ree variation in the Mayan script, before the U-element took over.

Interestingly, as already remarked, the DO pectoral text contains no examples of the U-shaped element, even in signs where the element is typically present in later texts (cf. A5 and B5). Th= is fact may constitute evidence for a very early dating of the DO pectoral t= ext, as proposed by Coe (1966; 1976) and Coe and Kerr (1998), and which I thin= k is supported by a series of glyphic and iconographic comparisons with Kaminaljuyú Stela 10 and Stela 11, which may date to ca. 300-200 B= .C.¹¹ For example, the rectangular posterior head element of the glyphs at A3/D= 4 in the DO pectoral resembles that found in the glyphs at F6, G1, and G8 in KJ 10. The glyph at A6 on the HTZ axe and B1 on the PMA flare can be c= ompared in particular with D4 on the DO pectoral, which contains not only a rectangular posterior element, but also the two circles present on the DO pectoral case.¹² Another pair of elements that bears a close correspondence includes the l= ower torso and thigh elements of the seated personage on the DO pectoral and t= he glyph at E5 on KJ 10, on the one hand, and the tree-like Jester God crown= ing the seated personage on the DO pectoral and the standing personage on Kaminaljuyú Stela 10, on the other hand (cf. Coe, 1966; Fields, 19= 89; Taube, 1998).

Other sign attributes may be relevant for= the purposes of relative dating of texts. The U-element, present in Mayan tex= ts from the Late Preclassic through the Early Classic, is not a very narrow temporal marker. In the case of the BMA pectoral and CNT 6125, the T757 GOPHER sign and the T1 7u sign, rendered similarly in both texts (cf. A1b and A3b, and A1a and A3a/A4a, respective= ly) may allow for a more narrow relative dating of these two texts; they share calligraphic traits not present in other Mayan texts. The only exception = with respect to the last remark is the DO pectoral; its instance of T1 7u at C6a agrees in form with those on the BMA pectoral and CNT 6125.

Preliminary Epigraphic Discussion

Four of the hieroglyphic texts published = here are particularly useful to epigraphers: the DO pectoral, the JM spoon, the PMY jaguar, and the UNP clamshell. They have been discussed and studied by Coe (1966; 1973; 1976), Ayala (1983), Schele and Miller (1986), Fields (1980), Freidel and Schele (1989), Reents-Budet and Fields (1990), Anderson (1993), Mora-Marín (1997), and Coe and Kerr (1998), among other authors. C= oe (1973; 1976) first remarked on the close stylistic and orthographic similarities between the DO pectoral and the PMY jaguar, while Reents-Bud= et and Fields (1990), Anderson (1993), and Mora-Marín (1997) have remarked on the close similarities between those two and the JM spoon and= the UNP clamshell. Due to these similarities, their generally excellent preservation, and the fact that they are all inscribed on portable object= s, I think that these four texts constitute a data set with more (structural a= nd semantic) controls for epigraphers to exploit than any other group of Late Preclassic texts. Instead of undertaking a thorough review of the scholar= ship on these texts, here I just point to a few of the preliminary results of = my epigraphic and linguistic analysis of these texts. I defend this analysis= at length in my dissertation, as well as in an article that is near completi= on and submission.

In Mora-Marín (1997) I tested the hypothesis by Freidel and Schele (1989) that the text inscribed on the reverse of the DO pectoral contained two glyphs commonly present in the dedicatory formula or Primary Standard Sequence of Classic Mayan texts on portable objects (Coe, 1973; Grube, 1991; Houston, Stuart, and Taube, 198= 9; MacLeod, 1990; Stuart, 1989). I selected two stylistically, calligraphica= lly, and orthographically related texts, as first identified by Coe (1976), and added the two examples with the same attributes first discussed in Reents-Budet and Fields (1990) and Anderson (1993). Three of the texts are inscribed on jadeite pendants, and one on a basalt jaguar figurine. All have legible texts. The most important of the= se is the one on the DO pectoral: it has the longest text of the four, and t= hus offers the best test