Customer Reviews

Reading the Maya Glyphs

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I recently took a Maya Glyph class and was getting destroyed trying to follow the teacher. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. When I got this book things started to make sense. (Unfortunately, I bought it too late in the semester to help my grade any.) Coe presents glyphs and the accompanying grammar in a concise clear manner that even those with no prior experience in any related subject can understand. The Maya Lexicon is also a helpful tool for tyros like me who are just beginning to study this fascinating writing system. While it is true that these examples are stylized and not from actually monuments, for the beginner this is much easier to follow. In addition, the accompanying text is well written and an enjoyable read.

I'm giving this 4 stars, because it just doesn't seem right to rank it as only an average book, it's really fantastic. However, having done a lot of (admittedly amateur) study of the Maya script, I found this book problematic in a few areas. First, you should know that some of the grammar presented here is still very much debatable--especially the sections on morphosyllables and syllabic disharmony. If you don't have any idea what that means, don't worry, Coe explains it well. The answers are just a little more hypothetical than the presentation suggests.

John Montgomery's book "How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs" is a little more conservative on those topics, and is generally more in-depth and scholarly. The book on this page, on the other hand, is better illustrated and has practice exercises that are extremely helpful. Ideally, I would recommend owning both--the overlap is not as bad as you might think and they have different strengths for bringing along in visits to sites like Palenque and their museums. If you must choose one, the Coe book is a quicker study and better designed for practicing and looking up material such as the syllabary easily. The Montgomery gives you decidedly more info and a more solid foundation. I hope this review helps you choose the best one for your taste. Either way, enjoy studying this difficult and beautiful script.

Not only is this book beautifully printed with exquisite glyphs printed in red ink, it is also coherent and accessible to everyone interested in Maya hieroglyphs. It takes almost no time to read and fully understand, and is a perfect introduction and reference tool. A must have for any Maya enthusiast.

I am an artist who wanted to take on a 20 year hobby of learning how to draw and read at least basic Maya glyphs. The book is easy to understand and read while still being intellectual (you are learning maya glyphs after all).

The illustrations are great to reference in drawing, and I do think they are better than the illustrations printed in "How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs".

Reading the Maya Glyphs, Second Edition is a clear and simple introduction to the topic. Richly illustrated and well written, it offers systematic explanation together with some exercises to check if it really works :-)
A must for a beginner epigrapher.

Holy Crap![.] This book is totally sweet![.] I may not be an expert in Mayan junk but I was keenly interested in this subject and this book delivered. In addition I had to write this paper about Classic Mayan Grammar in this class I was taking and this book saved my bacon. Thanks Michael D. Coe, I love you man...

Great tool for opening the field for Mayan Hieroglyphs.But not enough to master fully.

Perhaps the problem lies less with the authors and more with the language, but I suspect both are guilty of making this study of Maya glyphs as enjoyable as mowing a near vertical lawn in 100 degree weather. Imagine being asked to name and recognize each of the 101 Dalmations (with the understanding that sometimes any dalmation could alternately appear as a collie or unicorn or frog or loaf of bread OR any of those things turned upside down or stuck to the wall with velcro or distorted as if pushed up against a glass wall from behind). Add to that a series of cryptic lessons on linguistic esoterica designed to give you fits and several exercises to show that you will never make any progress here (and ought to question whether or not you have early Alzheimers or something equally dreadful that could explain why you got so many wrong answers on the tests). I actually started arguing with the book around page 30 which is when I knew it was time to move on. Instead of tearing hearts out of thousands of people the Maya should have spent more time making a language that was user friendly . . . even the Klingons did a better job.