Decoding Mayan Writing
Hieroglyphs are pictures or symbols used in writing. The hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians are the most famous, but the Egyptians weren’t the only people to use this form of writing. In Mexico and Central America, the Maya developed hieroglyphs that are quite different from the Egyptian ones. Only in recent years have experts been able to interpret Maya writing. The Maya carved hieroglyphs in stone and also wrote them in books or codices, made of deer hide or tree bark.
When the Spanish conquered the Maya in the 15th century, they buried many of the codices. Most of the stone carvings were hidden by jungle overgrowth until the mid-1800, when explorers began to find lost Maya cities. By that time, no one knew how to read the ancient hieroglyphs. Maya writing is hard to decipher. In Egyptian writing, hieroglyphs represent words. Many are pictures of real or imaginary things, such as people, gods, animals, plants and tools.
Natural Mummies
Various environmental factors can contribute to the natural mummification of a body. Sometimes extreme cold will preserve a body, as was the case with a Stone Age man discovered in 1991 high in the Alps along the border between Austria and Italy. Soon after death, about 3300 B.C the Ice man, as he came to be known, was discovered with snow and preserved in ice. Often when a body freezes, the tissues’ moisture leaves in the form of a gas, a process called sublimation.
Because of this process, the Iceman’s mummy weighed only about 28 pounds when it was discovered. Cold temperature was also responsible for many Inca mummies discovered high in the Andes Mountains of South America, where the Inca regularly made human sacrifices to their Gods. In 1999, thousands of Inca mummies were found in a Peruvian cemetery dating back to the late 1400’s. The area’s dry environment even preserved the colorful feathered headdresses adoring some of the bodies.