Well, I've just about finished this book, which I got off my sister, who had to read it for a college course. What a fun read! I remember looking at all the stelae and other carvings when we went to Tikal and Copan some years ago - now I finally have an idea how the written language worked.
I remember way back when I was younger that there was this general impression that the Maya were peaceful, especially in comparison to the bloody Aztecs, but it turns out that the Maya city-states were pretty often warring with each other, getting (and sacrificing) captives was a big thing, and leaders had lots of blood-letting ceremonies (tongues and penises). Mmm, not so peaceful after all. Besides which, the Mayan glyphs have really ferocious looking figures! I mean, look at these guys:
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It took a while for people to figure out that the written language was what Coe terms "logographic", like Chinese, Ancient Egyptian and Sumerian. Logographic systems are a mixture of logograms (symbols that indicate meaning) and phonetic signs. Like in Chinese where the radical often gives a general category or meaning to the character, while the other parts indicate how it's pronounced. I never knew Maya was like Chinese!
Coe gives a general overview of writing systems, and then traces the entire history of Western attempts to decipher Maya writing to the present. The history is pretty riveting, but sometimes one white male explorer blended into the next - it was much easier to remember who the few women were! (And the few, but key Russians) The other interesting thing about this book is that he takes a personal tone sometimes, excoriating certain explorers or academics for behavior that he finds obstructionist or ignorant. Coe also knows a lot of the more recent figures, so he gives his personal perspective on them, not something we usually read in books written by academics. That threw me off a little, but in general his tone is such that he really keeps you excited and, believe it or not, on the edge of your seat, waiting to see what the next great discovery will be.
One of the best non-fiction reads I've had in a while!
