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xix Preface The Conceptual and Methodological Underpinnings of Our Study Methodologies for Studying the Maya Codices Prior to the past twenty or so years, the most intensive period of research involving the Maya codices occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During that time the possibility that the hieroglyphic script involved a syllabic component was being considered, but it was ultimately dismissed. Because of this, early research on the codices tended to focus on the calendrical and iconographic aspects of the manuscripts. Although researchers recognized that certain codical instruments or scenes might have a mythological component, there was no real way to test these hypotheses or provide proof of their validity. After the logosyllabic nature of the script had been established and it became possible to begin the process of hieroglyphic decipherment of the codices, efforts were focused less on complete transcriptions of the hieroglyphic captions to almanacs and more on identifying specific readings—both of graphemes (individual graphic units) and of words. This process formed the basis for works like those of David Stuart’s Ten Phonetic Syllables (1987) and Deciphering the Maya Script by David Kelley (1976). The most important revolution in our understanding of the Maya codices occurred in the late twentieth century, with the work of Harvey and Victoria Bricker, who demonstrated that almanacs that were not directly linked to an absolute calendar such as the Long Count could be placed in “real time” through the triangulation of certain categories of data (see V. Bricker and H. Bricker 1992 for an explanation of their methodology). This brought about the realization that not all almanacs were intended to be used as repeating 260-day instruments, as previous scholars had supposed. Instead, at least some of them were intended as records of Preface xx specific events that co-occurred within a specific period of time. By way of example, the almanac on D. 33c–39c includes references to seasonal and astronomical events (including the summer solstice and eclipse seasons) that allow it to be dated to the early sixteenth century. Afurtherstepinourunderstandingofhowthealmanacsinthecodiceswereintended to be used occurred approximately a decade later. In her work with the Madrid Codex, Gabrielle Vail (2002, 2004) found evidence suggesting that a great many almanacs (those with repeating iconography from frame to frame, in which only the actor changed) had been used to schedule seasonal events over a period of years, rather than targeting events that all occurred within a single 260-day period. With this new understanding of the Maya codices, Vail and Hernández set out to transcribe the iconographic, calendrical, and textual information in the manuscripts and to incorporate this information into a database that would allow the modeling of relationships between these different sets of data. The result is the recently completed Maya Hieroglyphic Codices Database and Website (www.mayacodices.org), produced with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and with the technical expertise of William Giltinan. During the project, Vail’s focus was on transcribing and translating the hieroglyphic texts, a task that had not previously been undertaken for the complete codical corpus. This, in combination with Hernández’s knowledge of the group of codices known as the Borgia Group from highland Mexico, led the authors to seek to better understand the context of the codical almanacs. The fact that many of the rituals depicted in the codices were similar to those described as part of New Year/yearbearer ceremonies by Spanish chroniclers prompted an investigation into whether they might have played a roleinworldrenewalceremonies,suchasthosediscussedinKarlTaube’s(1988)doctoral dissertation, which in turn prompted an exploration of these types of ceremonies in both the prehispanic and contemporary Maya world. Since world renewal rituals are modeled on mythological acts undertaken by supernaturals and divine ancestors in primordial time, another important component of Vail and Hernández’s recent work has been the compilation of narratives (from prehispanic, colonial, and ethnographic sources) focused on cosmogenesis, the creation of people, foundation rituals, and other related topics. Source Materials In the past—and continuing today—colonial period sources (in particular, the Popol Vuh of the highland Maya K’iche’ culture) have been used to explain mythic episodes depicted in Classic period media from the Maya lowlands. A number of scholars have objected to this practice on the basis of the significant disjunction in both time and space. Nevertheless, specific characters who appear in the Popol Vuh can also be documented in Classic period ceramics. The most obvious of these...

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