Christian Prager & Cristina Vertan: Machines Reading and Deciphering Maya Hieroglyphs
Channel: Digital Classicist London Seminars
Date: 2021-04-16

Machines Reading and Deciphering Maya Hieroglyphs: Towards a Digital Epigraphy of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing
Christian Prager (Bonn), Cristina Vertan (Hamburg)
Digital Classicist London, April 16, 2021

Maya script is the only readable writing system of the Americas, consisting of 1000 morphograms and phonograms and used from 300 B.C. to 1500. Only partially deciphered, it is the subject of the project "Text Database and Dictionary of Classic Mayan". The 10,000 texts are made accessible using digital methods and technologies and documented in XML/TEI, using a digital sign catalogue. Due to the uncertain state of decipherment it is not possible to directly record hieroglyphic texts in phonemically transliterated values, unlike Classical epigraphic projects. We transliterate texts using numerical sign codes from the catalog. The numerical transliteration is transformed into a textual form in 10 steps, with variants possible at each step. As none of the digital tools available meet our need to scale this complex process, we developed ALMAH "Annotator for the Linguistic Analysis of Maya Hieroglyphs," allowing the semi-automatic generation of a phonemic transliteration from the numerical and enables multi-level annotation and linguistic analysis of Maya texts. The transcriptions are accepted, rejected or revised in further steps. Alternative readings can be entered, multiple decipherment proposals can be worked on in parallel, and the hieroglyphic texts can be analysed and translated with alternative proposals. ALMAH uses a graph-data model, reads data from the TEI-Repository and saves the annotated texts into an instance of OrientDB. It has a friendly user-interface and will be available as open-source software. We present the data model and functionality, and the underlying TEI schema allowing to encode Maya hieroglyphic texts formally and semantically.

The project Textdatenbank und Wörterbuch des Klassischen Maya (TWKM), directed by Nikolai Grube & coordinated by Christian Prager, run since 2014, is supported by the North-Rhine Westphalian Academy of the Sciences & the Arts in Düsseldorf, the Union of the German Academies of Sciences & Humanities, Berlin, & University of Bonn. The following research associates & partners have been instrumental in the project & made significant contributions: Maximilian Behnert-Brodhun (MB) (development, IT), Katja Diederichs (KD) (metadata, image archives), Franziska Diehr (FD) (metadata) (2014-17), Sven Gronemeyer (SG) (epigraphy, linguistics, metadata, ALMAH) (2014-20), Antje Grothe (AG) (metadata, image archive, literature), Guido Krempel (GK) (epigraphy, metadata), Tobias Mercer (TM) (development, design), Uwe Sikora (US) (metadata) (2018), Céline Tamignaux (CT) (2016-19) (image archive), Cristina Vertan (CV) (ALMAH), Elisabeth Wagner (EW) (epigraphy, iconography, metadata).

Credits for slides & concepts in this presentation: (1) Drws by CP, Linda Schele (3) Diagram from a presentation by SG & FD (2018), after original concept by CP (2015) adapted by SG (2018); this slide contains original drws by Marc von Stone (pakal), CP (all others) & SG (chi‐LAM); the drw chi‐LAM from SG (2014). (4) Diagram from SG (2018), after original concept by CP (2015) adapted, amended & modified by SG (2018); this slide contains original drws by CP, concept & the art work of the ladder exhibiting confidence levels is by SG (2018). (8) Photograph by Teobert Maler. (9) Exemplary images, with or without authorship: Ian Graham, Britisch Museum, Alfred P. Maudslay, Teobert Maler, Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Project, Public Domain (10, 17) Drw  by Marc Van Stone, Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions (ba-ki, BAK) (12, 13) Drws by CP (15) Criteria  for qualitative assessment of hieroglyphic readings developed by SG, NG, CP, EW; SG transformed criteria into propositional logic; citation of slide developed by FD & SG; rules for reasoning created by SG, supported by CP, EW, NG between 2016–20. (16) Citation of original slide by Franzisika Diehr (project member between 2014–18). (20) Drwgs by Marc van Stone (Lintel), & CP (glyph block, sign) (21, 22, 23, 24) Drws by Linda Schele (drawng archive) (22) Drw  by Linda Schele, concept by FD (25) Drws by Linda Schele (drw archive), concept by FD with MB; (27, 28) Drws by Linda Schele, concept by FD & SG (29) concept by FD & SG; (30) Drw by Marc van Stone (31) Drws by CP (33) Image by Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, concept of multi-level annotation by SG, NG, CP EW. Concept, scientific development & programming of the linguistic annotation tool ALMAH is based on work by CV (programming) & SG (epigraphy, linguistics), & other members. SG, as a linguist for Classic Mayan, managed this task from 2016–20. (34) Programming of ALMAH by CV with input by FD (2014-18), SG (2014-20), NG, CP & US (2018), EW. All drwgs used in slides 34-55 by CP; (56-68) by CV. Project presentations and publications: https://mayawoerterbuch.de/project-output/