The heyday of the Mayan civilization fell on the period from the 5th to the 10th centuries of the new era. After that, she began to fade away and gradually decline. Ancient cities were deserted, and mysterious letters remained on stone steles, temples and ceramic vessels, which in themselves were amazing works of art.
The unknown language began to interest enthusiasts after the beginning of the conquest. And since the first half of the 19th century, the dream of deciphering the writing of ancient civilization has become an obsession for archaeologists. Many European and American scientists tried to decipher the Mayan letter, but for several centuries no one could come close to solving this mystery.
Yuri Knorozov - ethnographer from Leningrad
Western experts had the opportunity to study many artifacts and make expeditions to Mayan cities in order to try to solve the mystery of writing on the spot. And thousands of kilometers from ancient cities lost in the jungle, the Soviet scientist Yuri Knorozov also fought to find a key that would help decipher the Mayan letter.
Diego de Landa's manuscript page.
The historian, who worked in one of the museums of Leningrad, had only two sources at his disposal: the Guatemalan edition of the Mayan manuscripts and Diego de Landa's "Report on Affairs in Yucatan". Ultimately, it was thanks to these priceless books that Yuri Knorozov managed to decipher the Mayan writing without leaving his museum office.
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Knorozov VS Thompson
In the middle of the last century, the theory of the English archaeologist Eric Thompson, who was an indisputable world authority, was popular among the Mayanists. The scientist himself recognized his version as the only correct one and did not tolerate dissent. Thompson considered Mayan hieroglyphs to be symbols and denied the idea that they could represent letters or words.
Publication of handwritten Maya codes.
This was the main mistake, due to which it was not possible to decipher the Mayan writing for a long time. Yuri Knorozov proposed a completely new principle for decoding hieroglyphs. The Soviet scientist suggested that the Maya created not a symbolic, but a phonetic syllabic letter that accurately conveyed language and speech.
In the early 50s, Yuri Knorozov published his first article on deciphering the Mayan letter. The scientist believed that hieroglyphs do not correspond to certain objects, but are separate syllables from which words can be composed. The publication of the study by the Soviet historian provoked fierce controversy among Mayan cultural specialists.
Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson, archaeologist and epigraphist, specialist in the Mayan civilization.
Knorozov's theory contradicted Thompson's version, it devalued the works of his entire life and therefore was met with hostility by the English researcher. Some Western Mayanists tried to discredit the Soviet scientist's discovery. They accused Knorozov of using Marxist-Leninist methodology and did everything to prevent the recognition of his theory in the West.
Yuri Knorozov, Leningrad, 1952.
World recognition
Decades passed before Thompson's supporters agreed on the correctness of Knorozov's theory. Deciphering the Maya hieroglyphs was considered the greatest intellectual discovery of the 20th century. This work brought Yuri Knorozov worldwide fame and recognition of the scientific community. The scientist explained his success by the fact that earlier archaeologists tried to decipher the Maya writing, and he approached this issue from the point of view of linguistics.
Monument to Y. Knorozov, mountains. Merida, Mexico.
In 1990, Yuri Valentinovich visited Guatemala, where he was awarded the President's Grand Gold Medal. After that, the scientist twice visited Mexico and was awarded another high award - the Order of the Aztec Eagle. In 2018, a monument to Yuri Knorozov was unveiled in the Mexican city of Merida, based on the famous photograph of a Soviet scientist with his cat.
