Pictograph to alphabet-- and back : reconstructing the pictographic origins of the Xajil Chronicle / Robert M. Hill II.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hill, Robert M., 1952-

Contributor:

American Philosophical Society.

Series:

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society ; v. 102, pt. 4.

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cakchikel language--Writing.

Cakchikel language.

Mayan languages--Writing.

Mayan languages.

Annals of the Cakchiquels.

Picture-writing, Indian.

Cakchikel language--History.

Cakchikel Indians--Social conditions.

Cakchikel Indians.

Symbolism in communication.

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 124 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society, 2012.

Summary:

The chronicle begins as a lengthy record of ancestral migration of the Mesoamerican Kaqchikel people in a timeless context, says Hill (anthropology, Tulane U.), then suddenly becomes a year-by-year description of important events from the 1490s through the early 17th century. He speculated that it had come from two different genres of now-lost pictographic documents: a pictographic history, and a continuous-year annual, but had no proof. On closer examination, he found a hitherto undetected system of elaborate subheadings that he argues reflects the formal verbal recitation of the ancient pictographic texts. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Notes:

Includes excerpts, in English translation, from the colonial-period Kaqchikel-Maya history known as the Annals of the Cakchiquels.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 117-119) and index.

Contains:

Annals of the Cakchiquels. English. Selections.

ISBN:

9781606180242

160618024X

OCLC:

815757734