English / Español
15th European Maya Conference: Madrid, Spain
Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop
29 November - 2 December 2010
The conference will be preceded by a three-day long hieroglyphic workshop. Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced workshops will be available. All groups will be taught and supervised by experienced tutors. Tuition will be available in English and Spanish (at Beginners level). The workshop includes introductory lectures by Alfonso Lacadena (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Simon Martin (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). The Workshop Introduction will also include a presentation by Karl-Herbert Mayer.
Introductory Lecture
Alfonso Lacadena (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Simon Martin (University of Pennsylvania Museum)
Traditionally, the opening lecture is the first event of the EMC. It serves as a introduction to Maya hieroglyphic writing and provides participants with a general overview of the history of the decipherment.
The Introduction will also include a presentation by Karl-Herbert Mayer.
Workshops
All workshop groups will be taught and supervised by experienced tutors. Tuition will be in English, on beginners level Polish explanations can be provided on an individual basis.
On Tuesday morning participants will be assigned to their individual workshops. The programme will finish on Thursday afternoon with recapitulating sessions in each workshop.
Beginners Workshop
Tutors: Christophe Helmke (University of Copenhagen), Harri Kettunen (University of Helsinki), Guido Krempel (University of Bonn)
The past four decades we have witnessed groundbreaking developments in the field of Maya epigraphy. The information enclosed within these texts has fundamentally changed our understanding of the ancient Maya culture. To be able to read what the Maya themselves wrote about their affairs is an intriguing intellectual endeavor and a captivating window into a past culture – with repercussions into present-day realities in the Maya communities of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. The objective of this workshop is to provide an intensive introduction to the study of Maya hieroglyphs. Participants will have a chance to decipher hieroglyphs on their own during the workshop with the assistance of the tutors. General tuition will be given in English but explanations can also be provided in other languages on an individual basis. No previous knowledge of Maya culture, Maya hieroglyphs, ancient scripts, or linguistics is required to attend the workshop. At the end of the three day workshop, participants will be able to understand the basic structure of a text, decipher calendrical information, reconstruct chronology, point at verbs and nominal phrases, and much more. The focus of the introductory level workshop is on the Late Classic history of Piedras Negras in the present-day Guatemala.
Enrollment limited to 20 participants.
Intermediate Workshop
Advanced Workshop
Maya Codices: Reading the Postclassic Painted Books
Tutors: Christian Prager (University of Bonn), Bruce Love (Independent Scholar)
This intensive three-day workshop will cover three Maya hieroglyphic codices: Madrid, Paris and Dresden. The workshop combines lectures, exercises and student projects in an interactive hands-on forum. Contents of all three codices will be reviewed--including the astronomical pages--one codex for each day of the workshop. Tutors will place special emphasis on the 260-day divinatory almanacs (rain ceremonies, agriculture and planting, deer hunting, carving images of the gods, beekeeping), the Chahk pages, the K'uh pages of the Paris Codex, and the yearbearer pages, which are found in all three codices.
This workshop is designed for the intermediate to advanced students and assumes that participants have a basic knowledge of Maya hieroglyphic writing and the calendar. This workshop will be taught in English.
Enrollment limited to 25 participants.
