ABSTRACT Scholars have proposed that for decades after the conquest of Yucatan Maya scribes wielded competence in both the old hieroglyphic and the new Latin-based alphabetic scripts. During that ...time some scribes apparently worked furtively to transfer parts of their pre-conquest traditions, encoded in hieroglyphic codices, into new forms of alphabetic-based writing such as the Books of Chilam Balam and other forbidden works. Various types of evidence -historical and philological- have been offered to substantiate claims concerning the lingering effects of hieroglyphic writing practices upon Maya use of the alphabetic script in early colonial times. In the light of new evidence from twentieth-century Maya scribal practice, this paper demonstrates that previously published arguments, especially those developed in an influential series of papers by distinguished Mayanist Victoria Bricker, can no longer be considered valid.
RESUMEN Los estudiosos han propuesto que décadas después de la conquista de Yucatán los escribas mayas seguían siendo capaces de utilizar tanto la vieja escritura jeroglífica como la nueva escritura alfabética. Se supone que durante cierto tiempo algunos mayas trabajaron para transferir parte de sus tradiciones previas a la Conquista, plasmadas en códices jeroglíficos, a los nuevos géneros de textos alfabéticos como los Libros de Chilam Balam y otros manuscritos prohibidos. Se han publicado varios tipos de evidencias -históricas y filológicas- para sustentar la idea de que las prácticas de la composición jeroglífica seguían influyendo en la escritura alfabética en los tiempos coloniales tempranos. En vista de las nuevas evidencias obtenidas de manuscritos en lengua maya yucateca del siglo XX, este artículo propone que los argumentos previamente publicados, sobre todo los desarrollados en una serie de prestigiosos artículos por la distinguida mayista Victoria Bricker, ya no pueden considerarse válidos.
The discoveries of Coptic books containing “Gnostic” scriptures in Upper Egypt in 1945 and of the Dead Sea Scrolls near Khirbet Qumran in 1946 are commonly reckoned as the most important ...archaeological finds of the twentieth century for the study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism. Yet, impeded by academic insularity and delays in publication, scholars never conducted a full-scale, comparative investigation of these two sensational corpora—until now. Featuring articles by an all-star, international lineup of scholars, this book offers the first sustained, interdisciplinary study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices.
En este artículo se abordan cinco manuscritos del periodo colonial que se conservan en la Biblioteca Nacional de México. Para comenzar, el texto explora el concepto de códice y su aplicación en el ...ámbito mesoamericano, con el interés de ubicar el criterio de agrupación documental propuesto basado en la remanencia de sistemas de registro indígena. A continuación se realiza la presentación de cada uno de los ejemplares que conforman el corpus, en la que se incluye un breve contexto histórico así como un ejemplo selecto de alguna de sus características gráficas. Finalmente, se muestra la ubicación espacio-temporal de los ejemplares en la historia de la cultura escrita mexicana, y se concluye con algunas reflexiones en torno al corpus abordado y las manifestaciones escriturarias e iconográficas indígenas en el periodo colonial. De esta manera, el propósito del artículo se concentra en presentar y describir los cinco manuscritos como integrantes del corpus de códices nahuas resguardados por la Biblioteca Nacional de México.
Religious manuscripts from ancient and early colonial Mexico offer a direct pathway into indigenous worldviews through the uniquely Mesoamerican medium of pictography. During the thousands of years ...preceding Spanish invasion, a complex calendrical system developed in the region, forming the basic organizing principle of this pictorial language. This book offers new interpretations and insights on both calendrics and the related iconography of Mesoamerican religious manuscripts, based on the author’s field work in the Sierra Mazateca in northern Oaxaca. Detailed calendrical analysis is included, along with audio recordings of chants, prayers, and ceremonies available as an online download. The author’s novel approach questions accepted notions of divination, chronology, and the dichotomy between ritual and historical time.
The history of translation in America in the 16th century is closely related to the construction of a colonial empire. In letters, chronicles, accounts, diaries, autobiographies, histories, diverse ...narratives, scientific texts, administrative documents and laws, it is almost impossible to isolate the fragments alluding to the interpreters and translators of heart-rending accounts of the political and diplomatic operations designed to obtain profit by exploiting and enslaving the indigenous peoples. In its most generalised form, translation between languages by nahuatlatos, or interpreters, was used to subjugate the oppressed. Paradoxically, the opposite is also found: early texts which, in the broad framework of evangelization, preserved verbal and aesthetic forms of the civilizations that were destined to disappear.
La historia de la traducción en América en el siglo XVI tiene estrecha intimidad con la construcción de un imperio colonial. En cartas, crónicas, relaciones, diarios, autobiografías, historias, narrativas diversas, páginas científicas, documentos administrativos y leyes es casi imposible aislar los fragmentos que aluden a intérpretes y traductores de los relatos estremecedores, de las operaciones políticas y diplomáticas que tuvieron como fin el lucro mediante la explotación de los indígenas y la esclavitud. La traducción en su forma más generalizada, a través de lenguas, nahuatlatos, intérpretes, sirvió para el avasallamiento de los sometidos. Paradójicamente también existió lo contrario: textos precoces que, en el amplio escenario de la evangelización, conservaron formas verbales y estéticas de las civilizaciones destinadas a desaparecer.
Since their discovery in 1945, the Nag Hammadi Codices have generated questions and scholarly debate as to their date and function. Paul Linjamaa contributes to the discussion by offering insights ...into previously uncharted aspects pertinent to the materiality of the manuscripts. He explores the practical implementation of the texts in their ancient setting through analyses of codicological aspects, paratextual elements, and scribal features. Linjamaa's research supports the hypothesis that the Nag Hammadi texts had their origins in Pachomian monasticism. He shows how Pachomian monks used the texts for textual edification, spiritual development and pedagogical practices. He also demonstrates that the texts were used for perfecting scribal and editorial practice, and that they were used as protective artefacts containing sacred symbols in the continuous monastic warfare against evil spirits. Linjamaa's application of new material methods provides clues to the origins and use of ancient texts, and challenges preconceptions about ancient orthodoxy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
In the present work, a method of general applicability is introduced for classifying a given set of ancient documents to their writer. A principal motive and, at the same time, a main result of this ...work was to test if two sets of documents preserving the Homeric Iliad have been written by the same hand or not. To achieve this, the authors have developed and/or improved two dedicated methods, which may be described very briefly as follows: the first method compares all realizations of the same alphabet symbol appearing in two documents and it offers related quantitative criteria. The second method aims at determining the ideal form(s) of each alphabet symbol the writer had in his/her mind when writing a document. In both methods, decision is made by means of novel statistical criteria. Application of this methodology furnished the following results in a fully quantitative manner: 1) all twenty-six (26) Byzantine codices kept at Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial or at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice that have been studied, have been written by four (4) distinct writers only. 2) The codices written by each one of the four hands have been spotted with maximum likelihood and 3) the celebrated “twins” have indeed been written by the same hand. We once more emphasize that the approach introduced here may be immediately applied to classifying any set of documents to the distinct hands that have written them.
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