| Isthmian script | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Undeciphered (Hypothesized to be logographic) | |
| Languages | Unknown | |
| Time period | Relatively unknown, perhaps 500 BCE to 500 CE | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Isthmian script is one of the Mesoamerican writing-systems that was in use in the area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from perhaps 500 BCE to 500 CE, although there is disagreement on these dates. It is also called the La Mojarra script and the Epi-Olmec script ('post-Olmec script').
Contents |
Discovered Texts
The four most extensive Isthmian texts are those found on:
-
- The La Mojarra Stela 1
- The Tuxtla Statuette
- Tres Zapotes Stela C
- A Teotihuacan-style mask (shown at right).
Other texts include:
-
- A few Isthmian glyphs on four badly weathered stelae — 5, 6, 8, and probably 15 — at Cerro de las Mesas.
- Approximately 23 glyphs on the O'Boyle "mask", a clay artifact in a private collection of unknown provenance.
- Those on a pottery-sherd from the Chiapa de Corzo.
Decipherment
In a 1993 paper, John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman proposed a partial decipherment of the Isthmian text found on the La Mojarra Stela, claiming that the language represented was a member of the Mixe-Zoquean language-family. In 1997, the same two epigraphers published a second paper on Epi-Olmec writing, in which they further claimed that a newly discovered text-section from the stela had yielded readily to the decipherment-system that they had established earlier for the longer section of text. This led to a Guggenheim Fellowship for their work, in 2003. The following year, however, their interpretation of the La Mojarra text was disputed by Stephen Houston and Michael D. Coe, who had tried unsuccessfully to apply the Justeson-Kaufman decipherment-system to the Isthmian text on the back of the hitherto unknown Teotihuacan-style mask (which is of unknown provenance and is now in a private collection). The matter is still under discussion.
References
- Diehl, Richard A. (2004) The Olmecs: America's First Civilization, Thames & Hudson, London.
- Justeson, John S., and Terrence Kaufman (1993), "A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing", Science, Vol. 259, 19 March 1993, pp. 1703-11.
- Justeson, John S., and Terrence Kaufman (1997) "A Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on La Mojarra Stela 1: a Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment", Science, Vol. 277, 11 July 1997, pp. 207-10.
- Justeson, John S., and Terrence Kaufman (2001) Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts.
- Pérez de Lara, Jorge, and John Justeson "Photographic Documentation of Monuments with Epi-Olmec Script/Imagery", Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI).
- Brigham Young University press-release on behalf of Brigham Young University archaeologist Stephen Houston and Yale University professor emeritus Michael Coe disputing the Justeson-Kaufman findings.
- Houston, Stephen, and Michael Coe (2004) "Has Isthmian Writing Been Deciphered?", in Mexicon XXV:151-161.
