MEDIA CONTACT: Stacia Smith
561-297-2971, ssmith@fau.edu

FAU Hosts Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop and Lectures

BOCA RATON, FL (October 11, 2004) - The Fifth Annual Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop and Lecture Series will be held Thursday, October 14 through Saturday, October 16 at Florida Atlantic University's Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The public is invited to come learn more about this ancient form of communication that holds the key to the history of the Mayan civilization that existed in Central and South America over 2000 years ago. Lectures are free and open to the public. The hieroglyphics workshop is $35 for materials. FAU students may participate for free. Registration is required for the workshop.

"The Archaeology of Central Yucatán" will be presented by FAU Anthropology Professor Clifford Brown on Thursday, October 14 at 7 p.m. in the General Classroom South Building, Room 119. Brown will discuss Maya archaeology in the central part of the state of Yucatán, Mexico. This poorly-known area of the northern Maya lowlands is key to understanding the Classic period of the region. He will examine both known archaeology sites and newly discovered ones.

The second lecture, "Telling Tales at Palenque," will be presented by Florida State University Professors Nick Hopkins and Kathryn Josserand on Friday, October 15 at 7 p.m. in FAU's Social Science Building, Room 250. Palenque is well-known for its many beautiful hieroglyphic monuments, with their revealing scenes of royal life and ritual, including the life of the most famous of all Maya kings, Pakal, and his sons and descendants. Recent excavations have revealed even more new monuments, with new hieroglyphic inscriptions, making Palenque's written history longer and more detailed than any other Classic Maya site. This lecture illustrates Palenque's history through its monuments, and looks at the skill of the writers and artists who executed them.

The Hieroglyphic Workshop will be held Saturday, October 16 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in FAU's Social Science Building, Room 190. Sessions will combine guided instruction and hands-on analysis of hieroglyphic texts from Palenque, the most beautifully composed of all Classic Maya writings. These sessions will be divided into two groups, beginners and intermediate/advanced, according to the level of preparation of participants. Beginners will learn to read basic glyphs, including numbers, calendar dates, names and events, using several texts from Palenque. Intermediate/advanced participants will learn about the patterns of overall text structure, using the famous texts from the 3 Tablets of the Cross Group at Palenque.

All workshop participants will receive a workbook which presents and discusses the materials covered, including reference material on hieroglyphics and the Maya calendar, as well as illustrations of the major monuments and texts from Palenque. Color-coding and other aids to glyph recognition will be used in the workshop, and participants will be supplied with colored pencils and other materials.

The series is sponsored by Ann Adams and the Public Speakers Fund, and the Department of Anthropology of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at FAU. For more information, call Clifford Brown at 561-297-3232.

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