A newly discovered column in the hieroglyphic text on La Mojarra Stela 1: A test of the epi-Olmec decipherment

Science

Volumn 277, Issue 5323, 1997, Pages 207-210

  Justeson, John S ^a   Kaufman, Terrence ^b  

^a STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARCHEOLOGY; ARTICLE; LANGUAGE; MEXICO; PRIORITY JOURNAL; WRITING;

EID: 0030879739     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5323.207     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. These texts are, in order of their discovery, the Tuxtla Statuette, the Chiapa de Corzo Sherd, the O'Boyle Mask, and La Mojarra Stela 1. When not otherwise mentioned, the text is from La Mojarra.
2. F. Winfield Capitaine, La Estela 1 de La Mojarra, Veracruz (Publ. 16, Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, Washington, DC, 1988).
3. J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Science 259, 1703 (1993).
4. _, Arqueología 8, 1992 (1996).
5. S. Wichmann, The Relationship Among the Mixe-Zoquean Languages of Mexico (Univ. of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1995). Wichmann made versions of this work available to us in 1991.
6. A. M. H. Schuster, Archaeology 47 (no. 5), 51 (1994).
7. We write Mije-Sokean forms in a practical, Spanish-based orthography. Most letters have their usual Spanish pronunciations, but j represents [h], u represents a high, central-back unrounded vowel, and 7 represents a glottal stop. Phonologically explicit representations of Mije-Sokean words are between slashes; phonetic transliterations of epi-Olmec signs are in bold italics. In phonologically explicit representations of Mije-Sokean words, grammatical affixes are joined to roots or to one another by a hyphen; elements of compound words are joined by =; and clitics are joined to adjacent words by +.
8. Readings for almost all of these signs were reported in the original announcement of the decipherment (2). Only three readings have been subsequently revised. One, appearing at V14, was revised from tzi to tzu in the spring of 1996, when it was realized that the final vowels of words we believed to be spelled with these signs would conform exactly to existing and reconstructible words if the sign values were exchanged. This change does not impinge on any semantic interpretation. Another sign, appearing at V29, was identified as a logogram for an intransitive verb, initially identified as referring to the performance of some kind of ritual, but later revised semantically to "to appear" (4). The reason for this change is that the verb refers to something done by or happening to both a throne (inanimate) and to human beings, to heavenly or spirit jaguars, probably to a god, and to a constellation, all in a ritual context. The constellation helps to narrow the semantics fairly tightly; becoming manifested (appearing, being revealed) in some way seems to be the only feasible category. The last change was made on 1 May 1997. Although the reading of the sign at V25 as /jama/ is unchanged, we have found that the meaning of this term in Mije-Sokean languages is "shape-shifter" rather than "animal spirit counterpart."
9. 3-wu meaning something like "kingly" or "royal." We read V11-18 as an aside or parenthetical remark about the situation of the protagonist when he made the remark at V19-24. Sign groups V25-30 might be a continuation of the quote at V19-24 or, more likely, is information provided by the narrative voice of the text. The text at V19-24 reads "What I chopped is a planting and a good harvest." /tzetz-e/, /nip7-i/, and /tuk-i/ are resultative verbal nouns or nonactive participles translatable as both "having been VERBen," and "VERBen thing," thus "chopped thing," "planted thing/planting," and "harvested thing/harvest." These three nouns presumably stand for three actions that are linked in some logical order. The chopping may refer to the beheading of a prisoner at L4-7 ("when I chopped [off his head] . . . ") or to the execution of the protagonist's brother-in-law, or both. The heads of his enemies or their blood, or both, may be the buried things referred to ("to plant" and "to bury" are the same word, {nip7}). This passage may have the prosaic interpretation that the "harvest" is the fruitfulness of the land with respect to some crop or crops at the point of or as a result of the burial of the head(s) or the blood. Human sacrifice was believed to promote good harvests. Among Mayans, at least, the ruler was expected to carry out rituals that would ensure good harvests at year-endings. "Harvester Mountain Lord" may be an epithet of the protagonist, rather than a name, and may refer to his success over time in ensuring good harvests. In this column of text, the protagonist who speaks at V19-24 is not named, although a title is given him at V5. He is presumably the same person as Harvester Mountain Lord, who is named and depicted on the face of the monument and given various titles. The text at V25-30 is translated as "(An) animal spirit companion(s) appeared divinely in his body." The text spanning Q48-T23 refers to ritual acts that resulted in the protagonist (or him and his supporters) taking 23 jaguars over a 23-day period [confirming the chronology of (4)]; thus, V25-30 may refer to this set of events; or to the garment-folding event at V6-8, when a public blood-letting and attendant vision probably took place, perhaps on the 10-year period ending; or to a public event after one of the harvests that may be referred to at V24.
10. Reconstructed words, labeled by an asterisk, are pre-proto-Sokean unless otherwise stated.
11. The identification of this sign as that for the number 2 is another result of direct examination made possible by the erection of the stela. The drawing in (2) suggested that the numerical dots were ovals, presumably because the photographs on which it was based had to be done at an angle, and they showed a spurious internal line, presumably an effect of lighting.
12. We thank S. Ladrón de Guevara, director of Museo de Antropología, who made the discovery of this text possible and provided us with the access needed for drawing it, and I. Graham, for photographing the monument. Our work has been supported by funding from the State University of New York at Albany Faculty Research Awards Program grant 320-9753P, the Texas Workshops on Mesoamerican Writing and Iconography, National Geographic Society grants 4910-92 and 5319-94, and NSF grants BNS-9411247 and SBR-9511713.