| UNH
Archaeologist Uncovers Earliest Maya Writing System By Erika Mantz, Media Relations The excavation of Maya ruins in Guatemala, by University of New Hampshire archaeologist William Saturno has revealed that a Mayan writing system was in use centuries earlier than previously thought. The finding is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Science by Saturno and his colleagues, David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin, who is working to decipher the hieroglyphic writing, and Boris Beltran of the Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala. Shortly after Saturno discovered the site, known as San Bartolo, in 2001 its vividly painted mural was heralded as the “Sistine Chapel” of the pre-Classic Maya world. The site contains a pyramid complex and several buried rooms. The sample of Maya hieroglyphic writing dates to the Late Preclassic period (400 BC to 200 AD). It was located by Saturno and his team on preserved painted walls and plaster fragments buried within the pyramidal structure. “This early Maya writing implies that a developed Maya writing system was in use centuries earlier than previously thought, approximating a time when we see the earliest scripts elsewhere in Mesoamerica,” Saturno writes in the Science article. The researchers used five samples of carbonized wood to date the text, placing its painting between 300 and 200 BC. According to Saturno, these findings imply that the Maya participated in the Pre-classic cultures of literacy at a significantly earlier date than previously believed. |
Submit your FYIs to campus.journal@ unh.edu. |