IUC 42: Keynote Speaker Announced

The Advent of Mayan Script Encoding: Mapping the Last Frontiers of Mayan Hieroglyphic Decipherment

Carlos Pallan Gayol
Archaeologist & Epigrapher, Dept. of Old American Studies & Ethnology, University of Bonn

Mayan hieroglyphs rank among the most visually complex writing systems ever created. Deciphering them has entailed a 200+ year scholarly quest, but this task is not yet completed and posits an inviting challenge for applying new tools from the information-age, culminating in the encoding of the Mayan script. Join us Tuesday morning, September 11th, as this keynote highlights the latest milestones attained in this pursuit by the NcodeX Project, where Carlos Pallan collaborates with Dr. Deborah Anderson, Researcher, Dept. of Linguistics, UC Berkeley, the Script Encoding Initiative and members of the Unicode advisory board. Stemming from research funded by Unicode’s Adopt-a-Character Program, it has been possible to produce new database tools and advanced functionalities, capable of mapping and analyzing all the textual contents of the extant Mayan books or Codices by relying on a novel catalog of Mayan signs with assigned code points.

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