Anthropologist claims hand positions on 1,300-year-old Maya altar have a deeper meaning
By Margherita Bassi published 3 hours ago
A well-known Maya stone carving known as Altar Q, located at the site of Copán in Honduras, may use hand signs to represent key dates in the Maya Long Count Calendar, a new study claims.
A side view of an intricately carved altar depicting Maya people
A new study claims that Altar Q, made by the Maya in the eighth century A.D., may convey a deeper meaning through "sign language." (Image credit: imageBROKER.com via Alamy)
The Maya used "sign language" on an altar around 1,300 years ago, and these signs may represent important dates in the Maya Long Count Calendar, a new study claims.
"This is the oldest text where, to my knowledge, anyone has been able to show that there's a real, well-defined" script using hand signs that's on par with other kinds of writing study author Rich Sandoval, a linguistic anthropologist at Metropolitan State University of Denver, told Live Science. "Other researchers and I are pretty confident in saying that the conventions of these hand signs are rooted in sign language."
However, not everyone agrees with Sandoval's interpretation, and one expert calls it "implausible."
In the study, published March 8 in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society, Sandoval analyzed Altar Q, a late-eighth-century rectangular Maya stone altar from Copán, an archaeological site in Honduras. Altar Q's intricately sculpted four sides depict a total of 16 Copán rulers, each with specific hand positions, as well as hieroglyphs.
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https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/anthropologist-claims-hand-positions-on-1-300-year-old-maya-altar-have-a-deeper-meaning