Time Line of Decipherment
1930s
Giant
steps—and missteps
By
the 1930s, British researcher Eric Thompson was the world's foremost
expert in glyph studies. His achievements included deciphering signs related to
the calendar and astronomy as well as identifying new words from the Maya
lexicon. Thompson also developed a numerical cataloguing technique, the
"T"-numbering system, for each glyph (above). This enabled experts
to easily discuss symbols that had yet to be fully understood or identified.
Nevertheless, glyph studies nearly came to a halt during this time, in large
part because Thompson had most scholars convinced that each of the symbols in
glyphs stood for entire words or ideas. For instance, the glyph for
"west" included a well-known symbol for the sun and an as-yet
unidentified symbol depicting a nearly closed hand. Thompson suggested that the
hand meant "completion." And so "west," where the sun
sets, was symbolized by "completion of the sun." It was a
reasonable guess, but one that, along with Thompson's more general take
on the glyphs, would be proven wrong.