Nikolai Grube | |
|---|---|
 Nikolai Grube at the 1994 Maya Meeting | |
| Born | 1962 |
| Occupation(s) | Epigrapher Mayanist |
Nikolai Grube is a German epigrapher. [1] He was born in Bonn in 1962. [2] Grube entered the University of Hamburg in 1982 and graduated in 1985. [2] His doctoral thesis was published at the same university in 1990. [2] After he received his doctorate, Grube moved to the University of Bonn. [3] Nikolai Grube has been heavily involved in the decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphic script. [4]
He has served as professor of anthropology and art history at both the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Bonn. [5] At the University of Bonn he has worked in the Seminar for Ethnology. [2] He has worked with several archaeological projects in the Maya region, including those at Caracol in Belize and Yaxha in the Petén Department of Guatemala. [5] He has also occupied a position at the University of Hamburg. [6] He is fluent in the Yucatec language of the modern Maya inhabitants of the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. [6] Nikolai Grube worked with Linda Schele in presenting hieroglyphic workshops for native Mayan speakers in Mexico and Guatemala. [7]
In the 1990s he visited Naachtun in Petén and recorded the inscriptions on the Maya stelae. [8] He is credited with deciphering the ancient name of the kingdom from the hieroglyphic inscription on Stela 1 at the city. [8] Grube, together with fellow epigrapher Simon Martin, proposed that Maya politics of the Classic Period were dominated by two so-called "superstates" ruled by the rival cities of Tikal and Calakmul. [9]
From 1992 to 1995 Grube received funding from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ("German Research Foundation") for a project investigating the oral traditions of the Cruzoob Maya of Mexico. [3] In 2010 Nikolai Grube served as one of the directors of the Interdisciplinary Latin America Center at the University of Bonn. [10] Nikolai Grube is co-editor of the Mexicon journal and is a consultant for the Mexican magazine Arqueología Mexicana ("Mexican Archaeology"). [3]
Since 2014 Nikolai Grube is directing the project Text Database and Dictionary of Classic Mayan, which has a projected run-time of fifteen years. [11] It is housed in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bonn and was established with funding from the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. [12] The goal of the project is to conduct computer-based studies of all extant Maya hieroglyphic texts from an epigraphic and cultural-historical standpoint, and to produce and publish a database and a comprehensive dictionary of the Classic Mayan language.
Uaxactun is an ancient sacred place of the Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some 12 miles (19 km) north of the major center of Tikal. The name is sometimes spelled as Waxaktun.
Tikal National Park is a national park located in Guatemala, in the northern region of the Petén Department. Stretching across 57,600 hectares, it contains the ancient Mayan city of Tikal and the surrounding tropical forests, savannas, and wetlands. In 1979, Tikal National Park was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, because of the outstanding Mesoamerican ruins at Tikal and the unique ecology of the surrounding landscape.
Siyaj Kʼakʼ, also known as Fire is Born, was a prominent political figure mentioned in the glyphs of Classic Period (250–800 CE) Maya civilization monuments, principally Tikal, as well as Uaxactun and the city of Copan. Epigraphers originally identified him by the nickname "Smoking Frog", a description of his name glyph, but later deciphered it as Siyaj Kʼakʼ, meaning "Fire is born". He is believed by some to have been the general of the Teotihuacano ruler Spearthrower Owl.
Linda Schele was an American Mesoamerican archaeologist who was an expert in the field of Maya epigraphy and iconography. She played an invaluable role in the decipherment of much of the Maya hieroglyphs. She produced a massive volume of drawings of stelae and inscriptions, which, following her wishes, are free for use to scholars. In 1978, she founded the annual Maya Meetings at The University of Texas at Austin.
Uaxaclajuun Ubʼaah Kʼawiil, was the 13th ajaw or ruler of the powerful Maya polity associated with the site of Copán in modern Honduras. He ruled from January 2, 695, to May 3, 738.
David Humiston Kelley was an American archaeologist and epigrapher. He was associated with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and later with the University of Calgary. He is most noted for his work on the phonetic analysis and major contributions toward the decipherment of the writing system used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the Maya script.
Tortuguero is an archaeological site in southernmost Tabasco, Mexico which supported a Maya city during the Classic period. The site is noteworthy for its use of the B'aakal emblem glyph also found as the primary title at Palenque. The site has been heavily damaged by looting and modern development; in the 1960s, a cement factory was built directly on top of the site.
A kʼatun is a unit of time in the Maya calendar equal to 20 tuns or 7200 days, equivalent to 19.713 tropical years. It is the second digit on the normal Maya long count date. For example, in the Maya Long Count date 12.19.13.15.12, the number 19 is the kʼatun. There are 20 k'atuns in a baktun.
During the 7th and 8th centuries in Mesoamerica, there was an evident shift in the roles women played in ancient Maya society as compared with the previous two centuries. It was during this time that there was a great deal of political complexity seen both in Maya royal houses as well as in the Maya area. Warfare was a significant factor in political competition and marriage was one of the ways that alliances were made between the different polities. This was accompanied by a shift in women's roles from wife and mother to playing integral parts in courtly life, such as participating in rituals involving the supernatural world and at times ruling individual polities.
Simon Martin is a British epigrapher, historian, writer and Mayanist scholar. He is best known for his contributions to the study and decipherment of the Maya script, the writing system used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilisation of Mesoamerica. As one of the leading epigraphers active in contemporary Mayanist research, Martin has specialised in the study of the political interactions and dynastic histories of Classic-era Maya polities. Since 2003 Martin has held positions at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology where he is currently an Associate Curator and Keeper in the American Section, while teaching select courses as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Tikal Temple III, also known as the Temple of the Jaguar Priest, was one of the principal temple pyramids at the ancient Maya city of Tikal, in the Petén Department of modern Guatemala. The temple stands approximately 55 metres (180 ft) tall. The summit shrine of Temple III differs from those of the other major temples at Tikal in that it only possesses two rooms instead of the usual three. The pyramid was built in the Late Classic Period, and has been dated to 810 AD using the hieroglyphic text on Stela 24, which was raised at the base of its access stairway. Stela 24 is paired with the damaged Altar 6, in a typical stela-altar pair.
Lachan Kʼawiil Ajaw Bot was a Maya king of La Amelia, an ancient city near Itzan in the Petén Department of modern Guatemala. La Amelia was abandoned some time in the middle of the 9th century AD.
Tok Casper was the first known king of the petty Maya kingdom of Quiriguá, in what is now south-eastern Guatemala. His name is a nickname, "Casper" being Casper the Friendly Ghost whose head shows a certain resemblance to the hieroglyph of unknown meaning that constitutes the second part of the king's Mayan name. "Tok Casper" took the throne in 426 AD and was installed by K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', king of nearby Copán. His successor was a Tutuum Yohl K'inich about whom nothing specific is known.
Tuun Kʼabʼ Hix was a Maya king of the Kaan Kingdom.
Moral-Reforma is a Maya archaeological site in Mexico, about 70 miles (113 km) northeast of Palenque.
Bʼalam Nahn was the seventh ruler of Copan after the reformation initiated by Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ. His nicknames were Jaguar Mirror and Waterlily-Jaguar. Bʼalam Nehn was the first king to actually record his position in the dynastic succession, declaring that he was seventh in line from Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ. Stela 15 records that he was already ruling Copán by AD 504. Bʼalam Nehn is the only king of Copán to be mentioned in a hieroglyphic text from outside of the southeastern Maya region. His name appears in a text on Stela 16 from Caracol, a site in Belize. The stela dates to AD 534 but the text is not well understood. Bʼalam Nehn undertook major construction projects in the Acropolis, building over an early palace with a number of important structures.
Kʼakʼ Chan Yopaat was the eleventh dynastic ruler at Copán. He was crowned as king in AD 578, 24 days after the death of Tzi-Bʼalam. At the time of his rule Copán was undergoing an unprecedented rise in population, with residential land use spreading to all available land in the entire Copán Valley. The two surviving stelae of Kʼakʼ Chan Yopaat contain long hard-to-decipher hieroglyphic texts and are the oldest monuments at the site to survive without being either broken or buried. He had a long reign, ruling at Copán for 49 years, and he died on 5 February 628. His name is recorded on four stelae erected by his successors, one of which describes a rite performed with relics from his tomb in AD 730, almost a hundred years after his death.
Kʼakʼ Yipyaj Chan Kʼawiil was a ruler of the Maya city of Copán. He was the son of Kʼakʼ Joplaj Chan Kʼawiil. The early period of his rulership fell within Copán's hiatus but later on he began a programme of renewal in an effort to recover from the earlier disaster of the city. He built a new version of Temple 26, with the Hieroglyphic Stairway being reinstalled on the new stairway and doubled in length. Five life-size statues of seated rulers were installed seated upon the stairway. Kʼakʼ Yipyaj Chan Kʼawiil died in the early 760s and is likely to have been interred in Temple 11, although the tomb has not yet been excavated.
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