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Michael D. Coe
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Breaking the Maya Code Paperback – October 1, 1999

by Michael D. Coe (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 49 ratings
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Breaking the Maya Code
Breaking the Maya Code
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Michael Coe's classic inside story of one of the major intellectual breakthroughs of our time―the last great decoding of an ancient script―has been updated throughout and now includes an epilogue that brings the reader up to date in the fast-changing field of Maya decipherment.

Among the more exciting advances to be described are: the discovery of the specific Maya language and sophisticated grammar used by the ancient scribes on stone monuments and painted vases;  archaeological explorations of tombs and buildings of the ancient founders of the great city of Copan, whose very existence had been predicted by epigraphers through glyphic decipherment; the realization that many small city-states were dominated by two rival giants, Tikal and Calakmul, through a potent combination of military conquest, diplomacy, and royal marriages.
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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Thames & Hudson
  4. Publication date
    October 1, 1999
  5. Dimensions
    6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0500281335
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0500281338
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

The decipherment of the Maya script was, Coe states, "one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of our age, on a par with the exploration of space and the discovery of the genetic code." He presents the story eloquently and in detail, with many illustrations of the mysterious Maya inscriptions and the people who tried to decipher them. Most of the credit, he says, goes to the late Yuri V. Knorosov of the Russian Institute of Ethnography, but many others participated. They did not always agree, and some of them went up blind alleys. Coe--emeritus professor of anthropology at Yale University--vividly describes the battles, missteps and successes. What is now established, he writes, is that "the Maya writing system is a mix of logograms and syllabic signs; with the latter, they could and often did write words purely phonetically."

Coe concludes with a swipe at "dirt archaeologists" who believe the decipherment of Maya writing "is not worthy of notice." According to them, he asserts, "the Maya inscriptions are 'epiphenomenal,' a ten-penny word meaning that Maya writing is only of marginal application since it is secondary to those more primary institutions--economy and society--so well studied by the dirt archaeologists." Coe sees that attitude as "sour grapes" and ascribes it to "the inability or unwillingness of anthropologically trained archaeologists to admit that they are dealing with the remains of real people, who once lived and spoke."

Review

A fluent, engaging, and informative account of the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics. -- Publishers Weekly

A great story told clearly and passionately by a great Mayanist. It's an inspiring example of the ultimate triumph of truth in the knockdown, drag-out world of academic politics. -- Science

As good an introduction to the world of the Maya, and of the Maya scholars, as one is likely to get. -- USA Today

Combines impeccable scholarship with an unpretentious spirit--that is a rare feat indeed. -- Library Journal

One of the great stories of twentieth-century scientific discovery.... Rich in personal, even intimate, details, the book reads at times like a novel. It is well calculated to keep aficionados of Maya culture on the edges of their seats. -- The New York Times

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thames & Hudson; Revised edition (October 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0500281335
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0500281338
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 49 ratings

About the author

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Michael D. Coe

Michael D. Coe

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Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University, Michael D. Coe is a specialist in the comparative study of ancient, tropical forest civilizations. Coe's books include The Maya, Mexico, The True History of Chocolate, Breaking the Maya Code, Reading the Maya Glyphs, and Angkor and the Khmer Civilization.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
49 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the story fascinating and enthralling. They say it has a huge amount of interesting information for readers truly interested in Mayan.

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Story qualityEnthralling
4 customers mention "Story quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the story fascinating and interesting. They also say the book has a huge amount of information for readers truly interested in Mayan history.

"This is a great story of a great deciphering and stays on par with Chadwick's The Decipherment of Linear B...." Read more

"...I highly recommend getting them both. This is the absolutely fascinating tale of the incredibly varied people who contributed to deciphering the..." Read more

"The book has a huge amount of interesting information for readers truly interested in Mayan Culture and Achievements but scientists and scholars..." Read more

"Nicely interwoven true stories..." Read more

3 customers mention "Enthralling"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book enthralling and lively.

"...as an artistic, archaelogical and literary endeavor, but Coe makes it very engaging." Read more

"Lively, even viscious..." Read more

"Enthralling and useful..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

California Star
5.0 out of 5 stars A story of great deciphering
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2009
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This is a great story of a great deciphering and stays on par with Chadwick's The Decipherment of Linear B. What have stricken me the most about Maya writing decipherment was how long it have taken from the first insightful work of Knorosov to the almost full understanding of the script that we gain with the ending of the eighties. Especially if you compare this story to the one's describing decipherments of Egyptian hieroglyphs or Cretan Linear B. I think that this fact can only partially be attributed to Eric Thompson's negative influence, the rest is number one much worst familiarity of the researchers with Maya languages in comparison to scientists dealing with ancient Near East (I think it steams only partially from ignorant unwillingness as Coe presents it, the rest would be availability of Maya linguistic studies, till quite recently the dictionaries were scare and qualified teachers even more, and the next factor would be that Maya grammar is like anything we know from Europe or West Asia) to this we have to add apparent immense complication of their script (to the point that each scribe could develop his own way of writing certain glyphs so much that we could recognize that it is not a different "letter"). Only after Benedictine identification of all the allographs and polyphones the real decipherment could actually take off. And we deserve it to the great variety of Maya epigraphers who's personalities are so vividly depicted in this book.
2 people found this helpful
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Bronwen
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating puzzle
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2017
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I found out about this book from the National Geographic documentary which I have since purchased. I highly recommend getting them both. This is the absolutely fascinating tale of the incredibly varied people who contributed to deciphering the Maya writing system. The book does get technical, as it is as much a scientific endeavor as an artistic, archaelogical and literary endeavor, but Coe makes it very engaging.
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KC Tang
4.0 out of 5 stars Lively, even viscious
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2008
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A good story needs a villain. The villain of the book in question is Sir Eric Thompson, who must have been a fascinating figure (in fact I've been looking for some biography of him after reading the present work). Skip the first chapter, which concerns writing systems in general, and you get a hilarious work (perhaps the author had James Watson's "Double Helix" in mind when writing), abounding with anecdotes and gossips of the nasty academic world. Thompson is the arch-villain, but the author's censure on the "field anthropologists" is also severe.

The first chapter seems to mar the whole work, which is a bit too long, and is not very accurate. For example, the Chinese writing system doesn't have "214 determinatives" as the author claims (p. 32) -- there're 214 "section headers" in a traditional Chinese dictionary, which were devised by lexicographers, and are not supposed to tell "one the general class of phenomena to which the thing named belongs" (p. 31), although the two concepts have overlapping. Of course these're only minor mistakes, and to them we should not pay too much attention, as the author warns us, unwittingly: "It will be recalled that Thompson dealt posthumously with Whorf by paying no attention whatsoever to Whorf's larger points, and devoting much ink to the latter's minor mistakes (and mistakes they were), like a terrier worrying a rat." (p. 152). All the same, one star has been deducted!
4 people found this helpful
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Larry N. Stout
5.0 out of 5 stars Nicely interwoven true stories
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2010
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I will echo the highly favorable comments already made by others. Prof. Coe enlightens us in a very comfortable style not only about the decipherment but also about the all-too-human sociology of scientific inquiry. We have here as well the overarching intrigue of how unlikely true history can be, in the very special case of our learning to read the writings of the Maya. One of my most valued books.
2 people found this helpful
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roxanne feline
5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling and useful
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2001
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The already-posted reviews give a good summary. I bought the book to read in preparation for a visit to the Mayan site at Copan and found it enthralling. It also introduced me to the archaeologists who recovered the cultural history of the descendants of the Maya (their names are on a monument in the town square). It gave me a better sense of how much we know and how we know it, which made our visit much richer.
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Richard Robinson
5.0 out of 5 stars what a detective "true" story!
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2013
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I was totally entertained and enlightened about the inter workings of the academic inter world and the infighting and personalities.
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Bob
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2015
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One of the better books I've read on languages.
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Michael Garrison
4.0 out of 5 stars Maya Code
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2013
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The book has a huge amount of interesting information for readers truly interested in Mayan Culture and Achievements but scientists and scholars spend a lot of time attacking each other and the book is full of these examples. Imagine what could happen if they worked together.
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Top reviews from other countries

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JaguarJon53
5.0 out of 5 stars A ripping yarn
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 12, 2015
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Michael D Coe, world renowned Mayanist, covers the history of the slow, erratic decipherment of the Mayan writing system in gripping style. My copy has the added advantage of being a former Augusta GA library which strikes me as appropriate.
The story is populated with adventurers, rogues and mad academics. It's a wonder that any progress was made; each character projects their own personal fantasy onto the architecture and artifacts of this fascinating enigma.
After centuries of blind turns and dead ends, they finally began to unravel the true history. Fascinating and a great read.
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Tex Sarabia
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in Germany on January 31, 2013
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Excellent buying experience! Perfect communication, fee, price and delivery time and good description. Higly recommended Amazon seller. Regards from Belgium
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kutai
5.0 out of 5 stars マヤ文字の解読史と、それにまつわるドラマ？まで描く
Reviewed in Japan on July 30, 2003
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巻頭でマヤ文字の性格、マヤ文字はどんな言語の文字と類似しているか比較する章を設けつつ、解読史をドラマチックに描くスリリングな本です。あまりよく知られていないベンジャミン＝ウォーフのマドリードコデックスの一部解読、ユーリ＝クノロゾフのおいたちと彼の画期的な音節文字の発見と解読、プロスクリアコフのおいたちと「誕生」「即位」の文字の発見と碑文の解読について描きます。著者は、学生社で刊行された著名な概説書『マヤ』の著者（現在最新版が『古代マヤ文明』として訳されている）として知られるマヤ学者コウです。冷戦時代の背景からエリック＝トンプソンがアメリカのナショナリズムにこだわってクノロゾフの解読を認めたがらないで意地を張っている様子を皮肉たっぷりに書いているく!だりなどは、当時の時代背景を伝える雰囲気があり思わずニヤリとしてしまいます。
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Dora Raz
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 4, 2016
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brilliant. thank you
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