Maya hieroglyphics

Decipherment

From that point, progress proceeded rapidly. Scholars such as J. Kathryn Josserand, Nick Hopkins and others published findings that helped to construct a Mayan vocabulary. The "old school" continued to resist the results of the new scholarship for some time. A decisive event which helped to turn the tide in favor of the new approach occurred in 1986, at an exhibition entitled "The Blood of Kings: A New Interpretation of Maya Art", organized by InterCultura and the Kimbell Art Museum and curated by Schele and by Yale art historian Mary Miller. This exhibition and its attendant catalogue—and international publicity—revealed to a wide audience the history which had latterly been opened up by progress in decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics. Not only could a history of ancient America now be read and understood, but it helped to connect the material remains of the to what had been written about the recorded individuals; they were now re-evaluated as a people with a history like that of all other human societies: with wars, dynastic struggles, shifting political alliances, complex religious and artistic systems, expressions of personal property and ownership and the like. Moreover, the new interpretation, as the exhibition demonstrated, made sense out of many works of art whose meaning had been unclear and showed how the material culture of the Maya represented a fully integrated cultural system and world-view. The old Thompson view of the Maya as peaceable astronomers without conflict or other attributes characteristic of most human societies was no longer applicable.