Thanks to the incredible imagination and ingenuity of Maya scribes, Maya hieroglyphic writing is one of the most complex writing systems in the world; it is visually fascinating, grammatically sophisticated, but creative and playful at the same time. Its decipherment took more than two hundred years, and in fact still continues to this day. It allows reading the history of the ancient Maya in they own words, and has also completely changed our view of many aspects of their culture.

This workshop offers an intensive introduction to the study of Maya hieroglyphs. It includes short lectures about the basic principles of reading the script, mathematics and calendrical information. The majority of time will be dedicated to working on Maya texts, when the participants will be deciphering Maya hieroglyphs on their own with the assistance of tutors. We will look at snapshots of the lives of royal court members from different sites, discovering their interactions and the society they lived in through texts coming from the center of Maya area (present day Guatemala and Mexico).

No previous knowledge of Maya culture or their writing system is required, and while the workshop in general will be run in English, explanations can be also provided individually in French, Slovak, Czech and Spanish.

After this three day workshop, participants will be able to understand the basic structure of Maya texts, recognize and read calendrical information, and know where to look for verbs and nominal phrases, such as names and titles of Maya kings and queens.

The workshop constitutes two parts of which the first will concentrate on reading and understanding hieroglyphic narratives from the Codices Dresden, Paris and Madrid with a special focus on God B or Chak, the Rain God, and God C or K’uh. The second part focuses on the relation of humans and gods as recorded on various monuments commissioned during the reign of K’inich Ahkul Mo’ Nab, the godly king of Palenque. In this workshop emphasis will be put on hands-on work with inscriptions distributed as study material among participants to be divided in work groups while presentations provided by the tutors will be kept limited and short. Guided by the tutors, the individual work groups will concentrate on the analyses of the hieroglyphic narratives. From the accounts of single inscriptions, we advance the idea of comparing different sources to get a comprehensive overview of Classic Maya discourse on gods and men. Participants will obtain further insights into Classic and Postclassic Maya religious belief systems and will deepen their knowledge of the Maya writing system.

The objective of this workshop is to discuss the methods involved in Maya epigraphy with a special focus on examining the graphic and lexical origins of Maya writing, especially as relates to the topic of this year’s conference. Besides the Maya script, the workshop explores writing systems in the greater Mesoamerican cultural sphere, along with studying the topic in the framework of world’s writing systems in general. The participants will be examining the lexical origins and visual characteristics of a range of signs and connecting them to their potential real-life counterparts. Analyses will be carried out by examining relevant dictionaries and other linguistic resources, along with iconographic source materials. The sessions also include lectures on various topics related to the theme of the workshop.

Participants are asked to bring laptops along to the workshop, if possible, in order to obtain the reference materials in digital format (ca. 3GB) at the onset of the workshop. It is not necessary for each participant to have a laptop (or any other type of an electronic reader) as long as there is at least one available for each group. The outcome of the workshop is a more profound understanding of the Maya writing system and, more importantly, tools to carry on epigraphic endeavors in the future.

This special workshop offers a basic introduction to the interdisciplinary study and use of information concerning Maya deities in the prehispanic Maya codices and in the late Post-Classic and colonial Maya ethnohistorical sources.

The workshop will include short presentations and lectures about the basic ethnohistorical and epigraphic sources available for the study of Maya deities. The major colonial sources of information concerned with Maya deities will be thoroughly examined and the tutors demonstrate how to work with these various types of sources in order to unravel the mysteries of the Maya deities, their diagnostic elements in imagery and writing, distinct aspects, and their importance for the Maya.

The workshop will also examine the nature of colonial “graphic pluralism” or the Maya preservation of information about the cults of their deities through the continued use of the Maya hieroglyphic script, and the concurrent adaptation of Latin letter based alphabetic literacy.

A final aspect of the workshop includes the creation of individual working groups that, with the guidance of the tutors, will each individually concentrate on the analysis of various individual selected Maya deities – their depictions in imagery and writing – by means of utilizing the interdisciplinary materials presented in the workshop.

By comparing and utilizing the different types of sources presented, workshop participants will gain a basic understanding of Maya deities and better appreciate the value of the use of interdisciplinary methods in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Postclassic and Colonial Maya religious belief systems concerning Maya deities and their images.

No previous knowledge of Maya culture or their writing system is required. While the workshop in general will be run in English, explanations can be also provided individually in German and Spanish.