Book Review: Breaking the Maya Code

Coe, Michael D. Breaking the Maya Code (1992)

Coe begins with a survey of the history of writing systems, with a glance at linguistics. His main story tells of the rediscovery of the pitifully few codices salvaged by a few of the Spanish friars, and the slow and steady recording of the inscriptions found on stone and pottery. Early students of these Mayan remains suggested that like all writing systems they were phonetic. A Spanish bishop, Landa, even recorded what he understood of the Mayan alphabet, which provided the key to the eventual deciphering of the script. Like all ideographic scripts, it's a mix of logograms (signs that represent words or morphemes), and phonetic signs that indicate the pronunciation of the logograms. The phonetic signs are also used to spell out words (for example, foreign names, which are meaningless in the native language). Thus a character could be a logogram or combination; or a logogram with one or more phonetic signs; or a combination of phonetic signs. Like the Egyptian scribes, Mayans used all three methods interchangeably, sometimes for aesthetic reasons, sometimes perhaps for word play or merely personal preference.

Coe is very good at sketching the character and life of each of his protagonists, and at summarising their research and its results. He tells s story of clashing personalities, professional envy, ego-involved clinging to obvious errors, and even interference by ideological politicians. The deciphering of the code was the work of many hands and minds (one a teenager), took longer that it needed to, and shows that academic infighting is as nasty and mean-spirited as any. In the end, we recognise an immense intellectual achievement, which will enable the (partial) recovery of Mayan history and culture.

That culture was bloody and cruel. I've been bemused by people who profess to see beauty in the Mayan characters and sculptures. I've always thought they expressed some of the most evil impulses of the human spirit, and had no desire (as I did when I looked a Egyptian art) of being transported back in time to live a few days or weeks in that society. Eric Thompson, one the most assiduous Mayanists, believed that the Maya were a society ruled by priest-kings, mystics who cultivated science and spiritual wisdom. I can't understand how anyone looking at the art could believe this. The most common expression on the faces is a sneer. The Mayan elite clearly believed themselves to be superior to the peasants who fed them, and gloried in humiliating their adversaries. The images of the gods show monsters. Mayan mythology seems to be death-obsessed - the majority of the gods were gods of the underworld.

Thompson believed too that the Mayan script was ideographic, "representing ideas directly". He should have known better – no other script anywhere in the world does this; all are phonetic. "Picture writing" exists only in the form of comic strip-like drawings, and both intuition and records of how they were used show that such drawings were used as mnemonic devices: they were not scripts. But scripts are not comic strips. What's oddest about Thompson and his like (and there were many scholars with similar attitudes) is that they thought they could decipher the inscriptions without knowledge of the Mayan languages, and with minimal knowledge of their culture. But that knowledge was available: despite their generally arrogant assumptions about their cultural superiority, and the truth of their religion, the Spanish invaders did leave reasonably accurate accounts of what they observed of the indigenous peoples' lifestyles. To make little or no use of these resources, to make no attempt to learn the language, to ignore the results of comparative philology and anthropology, all these indicate a man obsessed with a vision of some idealised world, and locked into a belief that he had found an actual example. No other interpretations could be admitted as valid or true. Yet oddly, Thompson did from time to time acknowledge that such facts and results were likely true. He just didn't incorporate them into his view of the Maya.

Not that Thompson was alone, nor is his use of anthropological studies unique. Think of the not so distant characterisation of the !Kung as a pacific, innocent tribal people, untouched and uncorrupted by the evils of civilisation. Yet statistical analysis shows that their murder rate is much higher than that of any civilized society. The desire to believe in an innocent stage of human society is strong; the myth of Eden expresses its essence.

One of the perennial questions about archaeology is its value. What good is it to know about long-vanished cultures? What practical value is there to knowing that the Mayan kings not only tortured and killed their adversaries, but also subjected themselves to horrifically painful rituals, some of which must have left permanent scars and impairments? The answer is, none. Except perhaps to help us understand what humans are capable of. The Maya were cruel and bloodthirsty, as were the Aztecs, the Sumerians, the Stalinists, in fact all totalitarian states (and all states tend towards totalitarianism.) But they were also accomplished mathematicians and astronomers, and had a far more subtle and accurate method of counting the days than we have.

In any case, we are blessed and cursed with an ability to produce far more surplus wealth than we can reasonably consume. Our preferred method for consuming that surplus is to destroy it in wars. Far better to use it for adventures of the human spirit. Space exploration is cheap compared to war. Archaeology is cheaper still. Each of these, and many other impractical endeavours, satisfies curiosity and intellectual and spiritual yearnings. That's more than enough justification, I think. I know that perhaps only a few thousand people will care that the Mayan script is now partially readable, and that our intuitions about their way of life will be more or less confirmed as their history is unravelled. That's OK. All interests are minority interests.