Types of Writing Systems:
Pictographic: Elements of writing visually portray their meaning (drawing a house to represent house, etc); no knowledge of the spoken language is necessary
Ideographic: Contains visual signs, but more knowledge is necessary because the relation of the sign to the meaning is not obvious
Logographic/rebus: Dependent on language; graphics can represent entire words, called morphemes; ex: the puzzles where there is a picture of:
an eye + a saw+ an aunt + a rose
which would mean "I saw Aunt Rose"
Syllabic: Syllables are represented by signs standing for consonant-vowels or vowel-consonants
The Zapotec: First Writing in the Americas
The first writing system in the world emerged in Eurasia with Sumerian cuneiform. However, writing was invented independetly in Southern Mexico. It made its appearance in the Valley of Oaxaca around 600 BC with the Zapotec civilization.
The earliest writing appears at the site of San Jose Mogote in the form of a glyph. Between two buildings is a corridor in which a threshold stone is placed so that anyone passing through the passage would have to step over the stone. The carving depicts a dead captive with blood flowing from a chest wound and between his legs is a name glyphs meaning 'I Motion' in the 260-day calender of the Zapotec.
The Valley of Oaxaca was a place of competition between chiefs and these chiefs were not happy to merely show the dead captives in stone. They also included the captives calendrical name. Thus, Zapotec writing was born from competition and later was used as a weapon for gaining power.
Monte Alban
Monte Alban surpassed San Jose Mogote in importance and further evidence for writing is to be found there. Danzantes - stone carvings of captives marked by a distortion of the limbs, open mouths, closed eyes, and often sexual mutilation - also contain writing of the Zapotec. They appear to have name glyphs associated as head level of the danzante. They may possibly also contain sacrifical glyphs associated with heart sacrifice. Pure text is also found in association with the danzantes.
Monte Alban was expanding and recording its exploits on stone slabs, called conquest slabs
During this time (200BC-250AD) writing was also associated with the speech of the nobility. It was truth and elegance, while the speech of commoners was full of lies and confusion. Thus, writing was in the hands of the rulers and used for propoganda.
Zapotec writing declined from 250AD through 700AD as it was replaced by iconography. Soon Monte Alban was also in decline and collapsed politically in 950AD.
The Nature of Zapotec Writing
Zapotec writing was most likely logographic, meaning that a symbol in effect stands for the entire word (such as in Japanese and Maya writing). The logographics did not rely on affixes, although it is possible that certain compounds may have required them. In this case the affixes were supplied by the reader and not by the writing itself. This makes reading Zapotec writing more interesting for the modern scholar.
The glyphs were most likely read in single columns progresing from left to right. There is little writing of length, however, and few surviving artifacts contain writing. The majority of writing accompanies the danzantes carvings and also on the "conquest slabs." Of the writing, non-calendrical glyphs are rare.
The Calendar
The best understood aspect of Zapotec writing is their calendrical glyphs. To the Zapotec, time was alive and was cyclical rather than linear. In order to keep track of this cyclical time they devised two calendars, one solar and the other ritual. The solar calendar consists of 365 days based on the solar year: 18 months of 20 days each, and a 5 day period. Piye, the ritual calendar, has 20 hieroglyphic day signs and 13 numbers for a 260 day cycle. The 52 year calendar round, the most famous depiction of which is the Aztec calendar stone, was also in use. (The 13 numbers interracted with the 20 day names which in turn caused the years to spin and after 52 years, the cycle began again.)
Maya Writing
The best understood writing system of Mesoamerica is that of the Maya lowlands, with the earlies dated appearance of AD 292. As with the Zapotec, the Mayan calendar glyphs were the most completely understood, with emblem glyphs following, and only recently has much of the writing been deciphered. It is now known that maya writing is organized on logograms and phoenetic signs. The signs are mostly signs for syllables of one consonant plus one vowel.
Maya Books: The Codices
Recommended books for more information on the Maya:
Coe, Michael D. "The Maya" --There are some four editions of this book, the newer being more accurate, but Coe's books are informative, entertaining, and he is not long-winded like some other scholars.
----"Breaking the Maya Code." --Details Maya writing and the long process of deciphering the glyphs.
Thompson, J. Eric. "Commentary on the Dresden Codex." 1974. --A beautiful book on the Dresden Codex, although it may be hard to come by. I have read that only 1,000 copies were printed, but it should still be possible to find.
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