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Tough Talk and Maya Kings
By Stephen Houston, Brown University Few conflicts begin with blows. First comes talk. Angry words serve to explain and justify an aggression, rallying friends and taunting foes. They advertise...
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Gladiatrix
by Stephen Houston, Brown University Among the most violent organized sports in the world is the Calcio Storico, now held in Santa Croce Square in Florence, Italy. If it could, the crucifix by Cimabue...
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The Face of the Calendar Stone: A New Interpretation
by David Stuart, The University of Texas at Austin Note: The following post, a bit off-topic from the world of Maya hieroglyphs, is excerpted from a larger work now in preparation, provisionally...
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Classic Maya Marimbas?
by Stephen Houston, Brown University The fun of comparison is that it turns the familiar into the unfamiliar. It forces us to re-consider what we think we understand. So it is for me. A recent trip to...
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Maya Stelae and Multi-Media
by Stephen Houston, Brown University Most Maya stelae are slabs of quarried limestone. Others come from the volcaniclastic tuff of Copan or the slate of western Belize and the sites linked to that...
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More Deathly Sport
by Stephen Houston, Brown University Some years ago, I posted a blog suggesting a distinct pattern in urban form among the ancient Maya. This was an alignment in which ballcourt alleys pointed towards...
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More on the Paddler Gods
by David Stuart (The University of Texas at Austin) Among the various gods we know from ancient Maya religion, the paired deities known as the Paddlers are among the most important and enigmatic. The...
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Jesuits, Angels, and Pipil Writing
by Stephen Houston, Brown University The list of Mesoamerican writing systems is not large. Of these, only a few are deciphered to a standard that would satisfy a Champollion or a Ventris. Among the...
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Analysis of Xunantunich, Panel 3
Christophe Helmke and Jaime Awe’s presentation of an important inscription fragment discovered this year at Xunantunich, Belize, is now posted on Mesoweb. Panel 3 and and its companion Panel 4 (a...
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Caracol at Cambridge
by Stephen Houston, Brown University, and Alexandre Tokovinine, University of Alabama Cambridge University is known for many things—punting, the excellence of College meals at high table, clotted cream...
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New Book: Maya Archaeology 3
The recently published issue of Maya Archaeology 3 is a goldmine of information on many recent excavations and discoveries from the world of Maya studies. Included are articles on Palenque, Río Azul,...
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New Book: A Dictionary of Ch’orti’
A Dictionary of Ch’orti’: Mayan – Spanish – English by Kerry Hull University of Utah Press, 2016, 480 pp. Kerry Hull’s newly published dictionary of Ch’orti’ is the most extensive dictionary ever...
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Old Notes on /jo/ and /wo/
by David Stuart, The University of Texas at Austin Figure 1. A late example of the jo syllable from the Dresden Codex. Way back in 1987 Steve Houston wrote me with some important insights about a...
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Recrowned Kingdoms
by Stephen Houston, Brown University In memory of Erik Boot, explorer of ancient Maya history and culture By wide evidence, kingly lines come to an end. The Rurikids, descended from Vikings, ruled...
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“Kill All the Lawyers”
by Stephen Houston, Brown University …said Dick the Butcher, a miscreant in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, act IV, Scene II, Line 73. What Shakespeare meant and whether this was side-splitting to a...
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Tributary Texts
by Stephen Houston, Brown University At Calakmul, Mexico, sculptures were not just made by craftsmen who recorded their contribution via “signatures” or “autographs” (Stuart 1989; also Houston 2016)....
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The Caracol Hieroglyphic Stairway
by Simon Martin, University of Pennsylvania The summer of 2016 produced discoveries of tremendous importance for understanding the political history of the Classic Maya lowlands. While excavating...
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An Intriguing Date on the Tz’unun Panel
by David Stuart, The University of Texas at Austin Figure 1. Inscribed block from Tz’unun, Belize (Photograph by Bruce Love) The latest issue of the journal Mexicon has on its cover a photograph of a...
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Puzzle Writing
by Stephen Houston, Brown University For Justin Kerr, with boundless admiration Transparency is not always the aim of writing. Signs can also baffle and please by means of scribal ingenuity. Sometimes...
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The Universe in a Maya Plate
by James Doyle, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Stephen Houston, Brown University Expressing metaphors for a constantly shifting reality is a human universal, especially during the mid-8th century...
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