Chapter 3

The Role of Interregional Interaction in Mesoamerican Script Development

Joshua D. Englehardt and Michael D. Carrasco

Current scholarship on the emergence of writing systems in Mesoamerican strongly suggests that interregional interaction played an integral role in facilitating the development of Mesoamerican scripts and iconographies during the Middle to Late Formative period (ca. 1000 BC–AD 250; see, e.g., Houston 2004; Justeson 2012; Justeson and Matthews 1990; Robertson 2004, among others). In two other venues we have examined the nature of signs in Middle Formative scripts and iconography and the formation of Mesoamerican script conventions, respectively (Carrasco and Englehardt 2015, in press). In this chapter we turn to a series of key examples from the Middle Formative period, including the knotted vegetal headdress, Ajaw glyph variants, and Lazy-S, to examine more precisely how “exchange” or the transfer of signs occurred. To understand how such interchange works in the context of visual signs, we adopt linguistic concepts such as borrowing, copying, transferring, translation, and transmutation to account for the different means by which a specific sign may enter a particular system—whether or not that system corresponds to a particular language group—and the complex changes in meaning, form, and context that it might undergo. Like writing conventions or sign categories, the mechanisms of sign exchange enabled complex reuses, innovations, and recontextualizations1 of specific signs that greatly enriched sign inventories and layers of meaning that accreted as signs were circulated among and between distinct scribal and artistic traditions.

By focusing on these issues we hope to transcend models that uncritically posit the seamless flow of signs from one system to the next and likewise those that a priori reject connections.2 That is to say, signs came with meanings tied to the semantics of specific terms, but also arrived within the additional aura of the donor system (or culture), which lent a significance that stood apart from the core semantic field of the denoted word. In Mesoamerican contexts this additional layer often has allowed for the identification of “prestige” donor cultures, in this case the Gulf Cost Olmec, in the same way that loanwords indicate the direction of borrowing (e.g., Mije-Sokean in the Middle Formative or Nahuatl in the Postclassic periods).

Many scholars accept the role that interaction played in the development of Mesoamerican and other writing systems (see, e.g., Fields 1991; Joyce et al. 1991; Justeson et al. 1985; Reilly 1996; Schmandt-Besserat 2007, 2010). They correctly cite the existence of common visual elements and formal features across regional scripts and iconographies as proof of historical connections between groups, which may also be reflected in common suites of material culture or linguistic features (see the chapters by Kerry M. Hull [chapter 4], Philip J. Arnold III and Lourdes Budar [chapter 7], and Charles L. F. Knight [chapter 8], in this volume). As in similar cases worldwide, more refined chronological understanding of particular historic traditions permits the inference of the directional flow of iconography, styles, and symbolism. Nonetheless, the way in which interaction figured in initial script development and the mechanisms through which interaction may have promoted sign recontextualization or adaptation remains relatively understudied, in Mesoamerica at least. That is, while it is sometimes apparent that a motif is shared across regions, it is unclear how this came to be the case.

For example, Chinese writing prompted Koreans to develop Han’gŭl, which was a system better capable of representing the sounds and structure of their language. Nevertheless, Chinese characters have continued to function in the system to signal what might be called a prestige literacy (Kim-Renaud 1997). Similarly the development of various systems in Japan (Lurie 2011; Seeley 1991), particular the kana systems, attempted to facilitate the writing of Japanese, a language that, like Korean, is rich in verbal morphology and quite unlike the monosyllabic words and limited affixation in Classical Chinese. In the case of the kana, however, each syllabogram’s form was based in part on Chinese characters. These two well-known examples provide clear instances of how a prestige system (Chinese writing) came to influence, indeed prompt, the innovation of the Japanese and Korean writing systems. Chinese provided signs as well as the conventions and methods of writing to each recipient culture. Convincing arguments have been made for the presence of a similar process in the innovation of Egyptian Hieroglyphics (Schmandt-Besserat 2010). Working from these instances of script innovation, Lacadena (2010) suggests an analogous developmental trajectory for the Maya script. Based on phonological information revealed with an understanding of the historic and formal development of the Maya syllabary, he argues that it resulted as a response to contact with Mije-Sokean speakers and Epi-Olmec writing.

In this chapter, we explore an earlier moment in the development of Mesoamerican script and iconographic systems to focus in on the initial innovation of writing and interregional interaction’s role in this process.3 We seek to identify the role played by interaction in script development and the relationship between incipient writing and contemporaneous iconographic systems in the late Early to Middle Formative period (1400–400 BC). To that end, we examine key examples in which signs and conventions from an iconographic system have been recontextualized in Mesoamerican scripts. Accordingly, we are particularly interested in how the selection of signs, their curation in new contexts, and subsequent changes in meaning (e.g., more phonologically restricted readings and/or narrowed meanings) actually occurred. This recontextualization is key to what we call the “transmutation” of signs from a pictorial mode to visual words. Here we follow Jakobson’s (1959:233) sense of transmutation, especially as developed in the work of Carlo Severi (2014:57–58).

As Jakobson (1959:233) defined it, transmutation (or intersemiotic translation) “is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Severi (2014:47) extends this idea to include the process in which “the interpretation of signs belonging to a nonverbal system can also be realized by means of signs belonging to another nonverbal system.” He suggests that we consider that “a statement or a notion usually expressed through words can be first ‘translated’ into images, and then further ‘translated’ (one should say ‘transmutated’) into music or ritual gestures.” By “words” he would seem to mean verbal signs which would appear to be limited to the verbal signs of speech. If so, then writing should be considered along with other nonverbal signs, although one very closely linked to the representation of words. It is important to note that pictorial signs and writing are both nonverbal signs if one considers verbal signs truly present only in speech. In this way the process of transmutation occurs initially in the representation of words in writing. That writing is a nonverbal sign might appear counterintuitive, but it only underscores how easily and commonly language and writing are conflated, as if the medium of writing were transparent. From this perspective writing is a transmutation of a verbal sign into a more-or-less equivalent visual sign, albeit one that is highly regularized and deployed within a relatively rigid set of conventions that often are indexical to the temporal progression of speech. In this way, the movement from pictorial sign to written sign is also a transmutation, one greatly facilitated by the recontextualization of a sign within script conventions.

In viewing the situation as such, the debate of what is writing recedes to reveal the far-more-interesting question of how a plurality of sign systems works both in relation to verbal signs and in relation to one another. Accordingly, in this chapter we address the mechanisms that allowed for the creation of a diversity of Mesoamerican scripts and iconographies and how these systems interacted through the processes of recontextualization and transmutation. In this sense, we center on questions of “how” rather than “why.” We focus specifically on the range of processes by which signs were transferred from one system to another—whether this is from a pictorial system into a writing system or between pictorial systems.

The disciplinary perspectives of epigraphy, linguistics, and art history provide several ways to approach these issues. Most scholars working on Mesoamerican scripts do not restrict themselves to any particular method. However, in this study, so as to better bring out the possible role of interaction in script development, we wish to emphasize an approach rooted in linguistic and semiotic perspectives. To that end, we introduce a number of terms adapted from the linguistic study of loanwords (Haspelmath 2008, 2009; Haspelmath and Tadmor 2009) and translation (Jakobson 1959:233). The evidence explored here suggests that interregional interaction fostered script diversification by creating a situation in which adopting systems utilized transferred or copied iconic elements in new contexts, in some cases to develop word signs or logograms. Such recontextualized signs likely conveyed not only their original semantic value but also a symbolic connection to their source, lending the sign whatever prestige came with the source system. Interaction thus promoted conditions conducive to the recontextualization of iconic elements that allowed for their transmutation and productivity within the emergent structures of incipient writing.

The Emergence of Mesoamerican Writing

Transmutation: Abstraction and Iconic Recontextualization

Investigations of the origins and development of scripts center on the processes through which icons were excised from pictorial contexts and incorporated into the new structure of writing.4 Current models of script development in Mesoamerica posit that the critical transition from iconography to phonetic writing involved the divorce of signs from a pictorial matrix and their subsequent incorporation within a linguistic framework and the new conventions of writing, which usually took the form of various linear formats along the vertical and horizontal axes. These conventions became the primary organizational principles for signs and their interpretation (see, e.g., Carrasco and Englehardt 2015:638, in press; Houston 2004:284; Justeson 1986:442, 2012; Justeson and Matthews 1990; Justeson et al. 1985:35–36).

Late Early to Middle Formative period iconography and its continued development in the Late Formative system (or several different, perhaps competing systems5) suggest that an ancestral system widely shared throughout Mesoamerica was the basis on which subsequent scripts developed (Houston 2004:286; Justeson 2012:838; Lacadena 2010; Mora-Marín 2001:444–446). When a sign system is employed over time in multiple contexts, there is a potential for an increased abstraction between an iconic component within that system and its referent (or object) (Justeson et al. 1985:34; cf. Robertson 2004). Such abstraction transforms what had originally functioned as an element of iconography or iconic sign into a conventional sign, “visual word,” or logogram (Cohen and Dehaene 2004; Dehaene 2009). In tandem with the transference (or transmutation) of pictorial signs to logograms, several organizational formats (writing conventions) were developed. Consequently, the interpretive framework necessarily shifted from one based on the pictorial conventions of the ancestral system to one that utilized the advantages conventional signs afforded an incipient script. This process was facilitated by the developing conventions of writing, which were critical for repositioning formerly iconic signs into structures that marked them as words, as opposed to visual objects. Thus, the generation of abstraction both between the sign and its referent and between the signs themselves is a core feature of script development in Mesoamerica and elsewhere (Houston 2004; Justeson 1986, 2012; Justeson and Matthews 1990; Schmandt-Besserat 2010).

The transmutation of a pictorial or primarily iconic system to a more symbolic one relied also on the adoption of conventions that marked text as such and that were distinct (judging from surviving examples) from pictorial conventions. In other words, the developing conventions of writing prompted viewers (or readers) to change interpretive modes. As Justeson (1986:439) explains, since “the interpretive conventions of any one prior system are inadequate to encode or decode the message, external or higher-order integrative conventions must be invoked.” Thus, the process was at least twofold in that both signs and conventions were adopted, copied, or developed. The evidence does not provide a definitive sequence of this development, but the linear demands of presenting language or information highly contingent on language provide a hypothesis for approaching the linearity of early texts in which this convention is itself indexical of the sequential nature of language, even if individual signs may not correspond to linguistic units (see Justeson 1986:439). The fact that diverse, seemingly unrelated Mesoamerican scripts nevertheless evidence linear and or recombinatory conventions similar to other world writing systems suggests the iconicity of the conventions themselves (Carrasco and Englehardt in press).

The potential interpretive tension that derives from the processes of abstraction and recontextualization thus demands the reinterpretation of visual signs linguistically in order to determine more precisely the contextual and significant relationships among icons (Justeson 1986:439; Justeson et al. 1985:34; cf. Robinson 2003; Rogers 2005). Depending on the contexts in which a sign is deployed, multiple interpretations of that sign may emerge, since the meaning of the sign is no longer tethered solely to an iconic significance within a wider aesthetic program or overarching compositional framework. The difference between the use of a sign in a pictorial versus a writing system therefore lies not in its phonetic value but rather in its function within particular contexts. This recontextualization and transmutation of ancestral signs permit a scribe or reader “to derive the meaning of a sign or sign sequence via the phonetic or word (i.e., linguistic) values associated with the sign(s)” (Carrasco and Englehardt 2015:638). In this sense, writing emerges through a process of semiosis when new meanings or grammatical-linguistic values adhere to a sign that previously depended on visual conventions to interpret both the visual message and the relationship between constituent signs. It is at precisely this point—when meaning may be derived on a basis of features other than iconic value(s) and pictorial compositional structures—that a movement toward linguistic codification and potential phoneticism began in Mesoamerican visual notational systems.

Conceptualizing the Role of Interaction in Script Development

Through interaction, things and ideas are shared across geographic regions or cultural groups. Ideas may thus entwine with material goods in generative ways, prompting the emergence of different interpretive conventions in which artifacts may assume new meanings (Clark 2004; Renfrew 2001).6 For example, emerging Mesoamerican elites adopted a Middle Formative material-symbolic-linguistic complex to bolster their developing authority, ostensibly through association with “Olmec” prestige (see, e.g., Clark 2004; Clark and Blake 1994; Demarest 1989; Flannery 1968:111; Lowe 1989; Mora-Marín 2001:33–36; Reilly 1995; Rosenswig 2010). Over time, however, as the objects and iconography of this adopted complex were deployed in different cultural contexts, they came to acquire a greater degree of specific reference to local systems, and functioned within distinct culturally explicit contexts. A clear instance of this process of semiosis are the divergent yet symbolically related twenty-day names fundamental to the 260-day scared calendar used throughout Mesoamerica. For example, the central Mexican day name ‘Flower’ is equivalent to the Maya day name ‘Ajaw’, one of whose original forms is a stylized flower. Examples such as Puma/Jaguar, Wind, and Death, among others, maintain even clearer symbolic overlaps and suggest a common point of origin. Outside the context of the calendar, the knotted vegetal headdress discussed below illustrates this process well. To put it somewhat differently, while the specific meaning of things or elements in iconography—like day signs or the vegetal headdress—often remained relatively constant, shifts in the contextual frameworks in which they were interpreted opened new possibilities for recontextualization, reinterpretation, or transmutation, which produced new, locally specific meanings that often maintained some connections to the original referent.

These processes were at play in the development of Mesoamerican scripts. Scholars of Mesoamerica generally accept that the widespread distribution of a Formative period “Olmec”7 iconographic complex across the region indicates extensive interregional interaction, likely due to the spread of what Reilly (1995:29–30) has labeled the Middle Formative symbolic-ceremonial complex.8 Nonetheless, as Lesure (2004:74) notes “Olmec iconography was widely but unevenly distributed across Mesoamerica. In some periods and places it seems very pure; in others, it is mixed with more localized themes and styles.” Thus, although interregional interaction is inferred, as Rosenswig (2010:49) observes, “the uses and meanings of Olmec imagery may have been employed in locally specific ways” (cf. Grove 1999; Lesure 2000).

In this sense, there are multiple ways of understanding interaction, exchange, and information transfer across cultures. In archaeology, stylistic and iconographic similarities have been critical aids in accessing exchange, as have material analyses of archaeological indicators of interaction. While these latter studies provide conclusive evidence on actual exchanges, style and iconography have been seemingly more difficult to quantify, since there is always variation and it is difficult to know at what point variation is meaningful and represents difference, or, alternately, is the natural result of repetition of the form without significant changes in meaning. The study of linguistic exchange, particularly loanwords and translation theory, has dealt with similar issues and offers avenues for approaching the adaptation of signs from one system into another. Martin Haspelmath (2008, 2009; Haspelmath and Tadmor 2009) discusses the basic problem of terminology for describing loanwords and suggests alternatives to the term “borrowing” that are potentially productive in the study of the transference of iconic signs from one system to their use as visual words (logograms) in another. He suggests that transfer, transference, or copying more accurately describe “borrowing” (since there is no expectation that the word will be returned or that it is missing from the donor system). Likewise he sees “adopt,” “impose,” and “retain” as more precise terminology for describing the nature of such an exchange.

Beyond offering a more precise terminology for describing exchange, the study of loanwords provides ways of approaching the adoption of specific signs (what Matras [2007] and Sakel [2007] might term “matter borrowing”) as well as the copying of larger patterns, such as the conventions of a script (i.e., “pattern borrowing;” cf. Matras 2007; Sakel 2007). Adapting this to scripts, we could then make the distinction between the transfer of a specific sign versus the transfer of larger iconographic or scriptural conventions. As Haspelmath (2009:37) explains: “Loanwords are always words (i.e., lexemes) in the narrow sense, not lexical phrases, and they are normally unanalyzable units in the recipient language. The corresponding source word in the donor language, by contrast, may be complex or even phrasal, but this internal structure is lost when the word enters the recipient language . . . However, when a language borrows multiple complex words from another language, the elements may recur with a similar meaning, so that the morphological structure may be reconstituted.”9 This pattern in linguistic borrowing provides a parallel example with which to develop more specific ways of discussing visual sign exchanges between groups. First, it suggests that the copying of signs (whether visual or linguistic) is highly complex and requires discerning the nature of the exchange. Second, it indicates that in addition to single signs larger portions of the structural system may be copied or transferred. In this case the amount borrowed is more than just a matter of quantity but it potentially changes the nature of the exchange along lines outlined by Haspelmath and others. That is, the donors and recipients analyze components of the system in similar ways because such a large amount of the system has been transferred.

Thus, the concepts of “purity” and “local styles” noted by Grove (1999), Lesure (2000:74), and others are likely better detangled from formal characteristics and linked more to the extent that (or degree to which) the donor system is transferred or copied into the recipient one, a process that also speaks to the recontextualization of signs to express locally specific ideas. One might justifiably ask if an iconographic style is ever pure, or what we mean when we discuss a “pure” style. We argue that style and iconography are never “pure,” but this fact does not make them any less tied to specific cultural ideas or meanings—especially those connected to a dominant or prestige culture. Indeed, the spread of a certain style or iconographic system may be seen as a valedictory reproduction of a dominant discourse, even when ostensibly “foreign” styles are incorporated into localized canons (cf. D. Bryan Schaeffer, chapter 5 in this volume; Jesper Nielsen et al., chapter 6 in this volume).10 For example, during the Renaissance the Vatican commissioned many works that display a more or less unified style and codified iconographic system that were emulated by others outside of Rome. Nonetheless, great differences in both style and iconography still existed across Christendom (cf. Panofsky 1960). Likewise, the adoption of Buddhist motifs or Confucian ideas into Korean (Best 2007) and Japanese aesthetic and political-institutional structures speak to a similar directional flow, yet with variability (Guth Kanda 1985; Paine and Soper 1992). In each of these cases stylistic “purity” (or lack thereof) is irrelevant to the central question of directional flow; nor does it allow for an understanding of how either Korea or Japan translated these forms into specific social, religious, or aesthetic systems. In some cases, like the scripts mentioned previously, there were significant changes in form yet one would still be able to identify the direction of the influence.

Thus, the problems that arise with the idea of pure versus local style are precisely why loanword terminology and theories of translation are so useful, particularly the concepts of copying and transmutation. The act of copying is an agentive one in which the question of “purity” is beside the point and would in any case be predicated only on the extent to which the copyist needs to preserve or understands the sign within the context of the donor system.11 In this sense, long-term interaction between diverse audiences potentially resulted in multiple realizations of a given sign. Within new contexts, different interpretive principles may induce the codification of iconic elements with culturally specific grammatical and linguistic values—and perhaps instantiated meanings previously unassociated with them. In the transcultural, translinguistic, or transregional circumstances brought about through interaction, a shared pictorial system is ripe for recontextualization, the establishment of more discrete organizational frameworks, and the imposition of new values within the emergent structure of writing. Interaction thus fostered recontextualization and transmutation by creating the conditions for scribes to copy and repurpose both shared content and structures. Below, we explore several illustrative examples that document the role of Formative period interregional interaction in the development of various Mesoamerican writing systems.

Evidence for Interaction in Mesoamerican Iconography and Scripts

Knotted Vegetal Headdresses

The knotted vegetal headdress is a common motif in Middle Formative period iconography, occurring on a number of media, most clearly in celt iconography (figure 3.1). This element, first explored by Virginia Fields (1991) and which David Stuart (2015) has labeled “the royal headband” was a potent symbol of authority, also appearing in a number of subsequent Mesoamerican iconographic systems and scripts to denote rank or political power (figure 3.2). In many examples, supernaturals, rulers, or persons of high rank wear a knotted element; a circular ornament or ear spool; and, in most cases, a vegetal diadem on the front of the headdress, thus confirming the association of this element with secular and/or ritual authority. This link is particularly clear in Aztec representations (figure 3.2f–g), in which emperors are depicted wearing the headdress, which itself may stand alone as a visual representation of the emperor (see pl. 16a of the Tovar Codex). In the context of the Maya writing system (figure 3.2m), although the motif is modified from its Middle Formative precursor, the association of the headdress with rulers and elites remains (Fields 1991). In the Formative and Early Classic material, the similarities very clearly tie this headdress in iconography to Olmec forms, from which it is abstracted into the headband form. In the Maya script the headband is one of several ways of writing ajaw, ‘king’ or ‘ruler’. The association between a headband and rulership is also found in expressions using the word huun (T60, lit. ‘bark paper’), such as k’ahlaj sak huun, ‘the white paper headband was tied’, or k’al huun naah, ‘accession house’ (lit. headband-tying house). Thus, in a variety of artistic traditions and scripts spanning the Formative through the Postclassic periods, the motif maintained a great degree of formal and semantic continuity.

Examples of this motif in the Late Formative Zapotec tradition are particularly cogent. In Zapotec iconography, the vegetal headdress likewise functioned as an indicator of rank or status, worn by the individuals depicted on the inscribed orthostats from Monte Albán Building J (figure 3.2d) and by supernaturals (figure 3.2e). The strong formal and contextual similarities between these examples and the headdresses in Middle Formative Olmec art suggest that the motif was transferred into the Zapotec tradition through interaction with Olmec groups, possibly to reinforce the emergent authority of rulers through association with Olmec prestige, as Flannery (1968) and others have posited. This is an even more plausible interpretation when one considers the use of the vegetal headdress motif in the Zapotec script during the Formative and Early Classic periods, where it was deployed as the year-bearer glyph (figure 3.3; cf. Urcid 1992:115, 2001:113; Whittaker 1980:26). In these contexts, the element retains formal continuity; early (e.g., Danibaan and Pe phases, ca. 500–100 BC) examples of the year-bearer headdress in Zapotec writing (figure 3.3a–c; cf. Urcid 2001:115–116, figs. 4.4, 4.6; Whittaker 1980:205) are, formally, virtually identical to those observed in Middle Formative celt iconography, particularly the headdress on the Humboldt celt (figure 3.1a; cf. Stuart 2015). Within the Zapotec script, however, the motif was recontextualized and, in later contexts, abstracted to a degree that formal continuity was less apparent (e.g., Late Classic Peche and Xoo phases; see Urcid 2001:116, fig. 4.5, 425, fig. 6.11). It is possible, however, that semantic continuity existed. Stuart (1991) suggests that the year-bearer functioned as a logogram that signified the “ruler [referring to the bearer] of the year” (cf. Urcid 2001:113). Nonetheless, as was the case for the word ajaw in the Maya script, the headband was used as a visual word (logogram) in Zapotec writing, and the element acquired a narrower semantic range of ‘ruler of the year’ and a specific phonetic articulation, even if that linguistic value remains undeciphered.

Within the Zapotec tradition the knotted vegetal headdress thus served two semantically related functions in distinct contexts. In some instances, the motif occurs as both an iconic representation of rank and as year-bearer within the same textual composition (figure 3.4). Given the high degree of formal and seemingly semantic similarity between the “original” Middle Formative motif and its iterations in Late Formative and Early Classic period Zapotec art and writing (vis-à-vis the relatively more abstracted versions evident in other contemporaneous traditions and within later Zapotec texts) independent invention of this sign is unlikely.12 Therefore, the most logical explanation, especially in light of the parallel example in Maya art and writing, is that the visual element was copied directly from a pre-existing symbol set, and subsequently deployed within the Zapotec iconographic and script tradition.13

Classic Maya Ajaw Glyph Variants

A related recontextualization of Formative period headdress imagery is that of the tri-lobed maize headdress, which Fields (1991) suggests formed the basis of the Classic Maya Jester God Headdress, a potent symbol of rank and authority (cf. Mora-Marín 2001:544–545, figs. 5.2–5.3; Schele 1999). This element is common in Middle Formative iconography (figure 3.5) and appears in subsequent iconographic systems, particularly those of the south coast and Maya lowlands. Of particular note in these examples is the deity effigy wearing a tri-lobed vegetal cap that crowns the headdress (figure 3.5a, c), which finds continuity in Late Formative and Early Classic Izapan and Maya art (figure 3.6a–d; see also figure 3.2l). In the Maya script, the Jester God Headdress is evident on certain variants of the glyph ajaw (‘lord’, royal title; figure 3.6e–f). The deity effigy with a tri-lobed cap in these variants clearly had roots in earlier imagery associated with a Middle Formative maize god (or supernatural associated with sprouting vegetation), again suggesting that interaction with the Formative period symbolic-ceremonial complex was intimately related to the development of this glyph. In some calendrical variations of ajaw (as a day sign and with a distinct variation of the Jester God Headdress; figure 3.6g–h), one observes a knotted element redolent of the vegetal headdress discussed above.

The mat-throne version of the ajaw glyph is particularly instructive. In a separate paper, we have argued that the CS 11–CS 22 pairing on the Cascajal Block (figure 3.7a) represents the pan-Mesoamerican throne-mat kenning semantically associated with rulership. The combination of mat and throne to form a visual kenning for ‘rulership’ occurs in nearly all Mesoamerican visual cultures and literary traditions (Carrasco and Englehardt 2015:640–647, figs. 4–8, 10). This mat-throne combination also appears in the T168 (584.687a) ajaw logogram in the Maya script (figure 3.7b–d; cf. Lacadena 1995; Mora-Marín 2001:607, fig. 6.24). It is particularly noteworthy that this ajaw glyph variant appears in one of the texts in the San Bartolo murals (figure 3.7b), the earliest-known example of Maya writing (Saturno et al. 2006:1282, fig. 4). The mat and throne elements in these examples are formally similar and, in semantic and functional terms, practically identical. We therefore suggest that “visual lexicalization” is the source of the Maya sign, possibly derived from the “closeness of the original CS 11–CS 22 kenning structure” (Carrasco and Englehardt 2015:650). Such striking formal and sematic continuity between signs in distinct scripts strongly implies interaction between the groups that employed the sign in discrete contexts. In the development of both of these ajaw variants, Maya scribes recontextualized and linguistically codified an originally iconic motif whose form and semantic content remained relatively constant over time. Thus, like the knotted headdress, the foliated diadem seems to have been adopted by the Maya to serve within a range of imagery denoting rulership to such a degree that in some cases it, too, functions as a glyph for ajaw. The existence of three different glyphs—jester god, headband, and throne—for this term is also interesting, especially since in each case the motivation for their iconography appears based on earlier Middle Formative signs.

The Lazy-S

Another instance of formal and semantic continuity evident in a Middle Formative motif redeployed in subsequent scripts is the Lazy-S. Kent Reilly (1996) has convincingly demonstrated that this motif represents a rain cloud, and formed the basis for the Classic Maya sign T632. The Lazy-S appears in a number of iconographic and script systems in essentially indistinguishable forms and with identical semantic functions (figure 3.8). In both glyphic and iconographic contexts, one observes droplets of liquid flowing from the motif (e.g., figure 3.8b–d), often over vegetal motifs, as in the Zapotec example (figure 3.8c; cf. Urcid 2005:fig. 7.6).14 Reilly’s (1996:414, fig. 3) identification of the Lazy-S-cloud substitution set is further supported by the appearance of the motif on an effigy vessel of a Middle Formative rain deity (figure 3.8a; see Taube 2009), as well as the rain falling from the motif over Chaak, the Maya rain god on p. 68a of the Dresden Codex (figure 3.8d15). In iconographic contexts, an association between the Lazy-S and rain or water also appears in designs on western Mesoamerican Teuchitlán ceramics from central Jalisco, as well as in several other examples from Michoacán and Guanajuato (Heredia and Englehardt 2016).16 In the Maya script, the Lazy-S element at the heart of T632 variants—with a confirmed reading of MUYAL (muyal, ‘cloud’; Houston and Stuart 1990)—in Late Formative, Classic, and Postclassic texts (figure 3.8e–g; see also Stone 1996:405, fig. 4) attests to the formal and semantic endurance of the motif through time and in discrete contexts.

Like the knotted vegetal headdress, the Lazy-S appears to have acquired a second value in the Zapotec tradition. The motif appears inset in the funerary box of the personage carved on jamb 2, tomb 1 from San Lázaro Etla (figure 3.9a; cf. Urcid 2005:fig. 5.49). Although its meaning is not entirely clear in this case, it is possible that the motif carries a value distinct from that in other Zapotec texts (cf. figure 3.8c), perhaps as a locative. In the much later contexts of the Mixtec Codex Bodley, the Lazy-S occurs on the facade of the Temple of Lady 9 Grass at Chalcatongo (figure 3.9b). In the Mixtec case, the motif is most securely identified as xonecuilli (John M. D. Pohl, personal communication, 2014). This symbol is a Postclassic iteration of the original Middle Formative motif (Angulo Villaseñor 2002:17) that is associated with the stars, possibly specifically with the Southern Cross, the Pleiades, or Ursa Major (Aveni 2001:36–37, fig. 12; Rivas Castro and Lechuga García 2002:62–63; Tezozómoc 1980:573).17 The association of the motif with stars, as heavenly bodies, and its secondary association with thunder (cf. Angulo Villaseñor 2002:17 n3) again suggest that a tenuous, indirect link to the original semantic value of the Lazy-S motif remained, even as the sign was recontextualized within discrete artistic and scribal traditions.

Archaeological-Linguistic Correlations

Iconic recontextualization or transmutation may occur in variable contexts and is itself contextualized within the interrelated, long-term processes of linguistic diversification and script development. In this sense, historical linguistic data frame the spatial and temporal contexts of the interaction involved in the emergence of Mesoamerican writing, and may provide clues regarding the temporal contexts in which pictorial interpretive matrices ceased to function as the sole organizing framework for systems of visual communication. Specialists in Mesoamerican linguistics have seen the widespread diffusion of Mije-Soke vocabulary across regional language families as an indicator of extensive interaction during the Formative period (Campbell and Kaufman 1976; Campbell et al. 1986; Justeson et al. 1985:23; Kaufman 1976; Wichmann 1995, 1999; Wichmann et al. 2008; see also Kerry M. Hull, chapter 4 in this volume). More recently, Alfonso Lacadena (2010) has demonstrated the close relationship between Mije-Soke linguistic structures and the development of syllabic signs in early Mesoamerican scripts (table 3.1). Finally, the existence of graphic representations of lexical calques18 in Maya writing (see Helmke 2013) strongly suggests that linguistic interaction among users of distinct iconographic and writing systems was occurring in tandem with processes of script development.

Table 3.1. Phonological aspects of early writing or ancestral script as compared with four Mesoamerican language families.

Source: After Lacadena 2010:36, table 3.

^a Shading = coincidence.

Linguistic data thus suggest that contemporaneous linguistic interaction was just as crucial to script development as the spread of the Formative period iconography and symbolism upon which we are suggesting writing is based. Further, these data match well with archaeological evidence—particularly ceramics and obsidian—that indicates extensive interregional exchange networks extending into the Early Formative period and supports the notion that linguistic, artistic, and material interaction were coeval (Blomster et al. 2005; Cheetham 2007, 2010; Cheetham et al. 2009; Demarest 1989; Flannery 1968; Rosenswig 2010:235, fig. 7.2; Wichmann et al. 2008:679, figs. 2a–b; cf. Justeson et al. 1985:4; Kaufman 1976; Lesure 2004; see also Guy David Hepp, chapter 2 in this volume; Kerry M. Hull, chapter 4 in this volume).19

Variability in Scribal Conventions

A second line of ancillary evidence suggestive of interaction’s role in script development is related to evident variability in scribal conventions among distinct Mesoamerican scripts. In these writing systems, there are two primary conventions for presenting a written text and/or glyphic elements: speech scrolls and linear-columnar organization (see figure 3.10). There are two significant points to stress here. First, both conventions appear in the Middle Formative period, at the moment of writing’s development, in two of the earliest exemplars of Mesoamerican texts: the San Andrés cylinder seal, and the Cascajal Block (Figure 3.10a, i). These examples suggest that both conventions were present at an exceptionally early date, and that scribes were experimenting with distinct methods of textually representing speech. Second, and more significant to the present discussion, the presence of both conventions in a variety of Mesoamerican scripts suggests that scribes of diverse systems were familiar with these distinct conventions. Such familiarity was likely achieved through interaction. The presence of speech or sound scrolls in systems that primarily employed linear-columnar conventions (e.g., the Mayan script, see figure 3.10b, d)—and vice versa—indicates that scribes in discrete contexts were interacting with one another, or at the least were conversant with scripts that employed variable conventions. Insofar as it allowed scribes to achieve distinct conceptualizations of the textual representation of visual elements, the knowledge of and/or experimentation with different ways of visually representing grammatical-linguistic elements was critical to the processes involved in script development. In this sense, variable scribal conventions among regional scripts illustrate the concept of “pattern borrowing” (or transference) detailed by Matras (2007), Sakel (2007), and others.

Discussion: Tracing Interaction in Mesoamerican Script Development

Although it is generally accepted that interaction played a critical role in the emergence of Mesoamerican writing systems, tracing such interaction and its role in script development in concrete terms has proven difficult. No established method exists to quantify transformations in iconic elements as they are recontextualized in scripts, and determining significant changes in meaning is not always as straightforward as in the examples presented above. Nor is there an accepted technique to objectively determine degrees of distance between recontextualized signs and their original iconic referents. Understanding the relationship between interaction and innovative reformulations of shared motifs is further complicated by the fact that these processes are intertwined in the complementary historical trajectories of linguistic diversification and script development (Carrasco and Englehardt 2015:647).

Writing systems, as conservative entities, retain features related to their own history, including historical episodes of transfer and/or interaction with other scripts or systems of visual notation (Lacadena 1995, 2010). The existence of shared elements and motifs in culturally or geographically distinct scripts or representational systems is therefore most parsimoniously explained by interaction between the groups that employed those systems.20 Although care must be taken in postulating the nature of the relationship between those groups or systems (i.e., not necessarily “genetic”; see Proskouriakoff 1968, 1971; Quirarte 2007), it follows that shared elements are in most cases a product of dissemination or transfer from system A to system B. In addition to a core pictographic and ideographic visual vocabulary, early Mesoamerican scripts also initially shared underlying narrative conventions that framed interpretations of a given iconographic composition, as we have argued elsewhere. But these narratives changed over time, as they spread to increasingly diverse spatial and cultural contexts. As the narratives changed, so too did the system(s) of interpretation.

In this sense, interaction is identifiable through shared formal features, orthographic conventions, and linguistic aspects shared among Mesoamerica scripts and iconographies in both synchronic and diachronic contexts. Interaction may be further inferred from the presence of shared general characteristics of the systems, the shared graphic designs of the signs that comprise those systems, “intermediate” visual forms and/or texts that are legible in two distinct languages, “frozen” semantic values that continue to be employed in scripts and/or the presence of fossilized reading values (belonging to the original donor), or identifiable problems of adaptation21 of the donor script (which was created originally to write a different language; Lacadena 2010; Mora-Marín 2001; cf. Justeson 1986, 2012). Justeson et al. (1985) distinguish between shared formal traits that develop from independent invention and those that result from inherited or diffused innovations. We agree with their conclusion that a greater degree of arbitrariness of a shared feature indicates greater likelihood of common descent from an ancestral iconographic system or script22 (see also Justeson 1986; Justeson and Matthews 1990). Moreover, as Reilly (1991:151) notes, the identification of elements of an antecedent iconographic system within a later script must be predicated on the testable hypothesis that certain elements of the writing system can be visually identified in iconographic contexts (or some other Mesoamerican or scribal tradition) and that these elements perform similar functions in both the “donor” and “recipient” systems. In those cases, linguistic data (and shifts) latently related to script development are critical to deducing “new” potential semantic values or syntactical functions of specific visual elements. In that sense, we concur with Justeson et al. (1985:4), and others, that linguistic interaction is coeval and positively correlated with material cultural and iconographic exchange (cf. Wichmann 1999; Wichmann et al. 2008; see also Kerry M. Hull, chapter 4 in this volume).

Nonetheless, modifications in the formal or stylistic aspects of the visual elements that comprise an incipient script system—or that are shared between contemporaneous scripts and iconography—could suggest specific functional changes of those elements as “ancestral” icons were excised from pictorial contexts and potentially acquired new values or functions when reformulated or redeployed in discrete contexts. Modifications in the formal characteristics of shared signs (e.g., the addition of new visual elements to preexisting icons, the reshaping or simplification of distinctive sign forms) may thus reflect recodification stemming from recontextualization (Lacadena 1995). Often, the new features of a recontextualized sign drew on the iconicity of the original while adding culturally specific visual or linguistic markers—or semantic mnemonic information—in order to aid in identification of the sign and its meaning.

Thus, formal, stylistic, and functional similarities and differences in visual data suggest trends in the nature, extent, temporality, and directionality of the processes of regional iconographic interaction. Likewise, interaction is recognizable through identifiable variant forms of ancestral icons—shared widely across Mesoamerica—recontextualized within new, locally specific, and ostensibly grammatical and linguistic organizational frameworks. From a diachronic perspective, patterns are apparent in the data, which suggest the origins and directions of influences on incipient scribal traditions. These patterns illustrate the association of Formative period interregional interaction with the recontextualization involved in the development of various Mesoamerican scripts. As we have detailed above, patterns of transfer, copying, and interaction evident in the distribution of signs and conventions show that by the Middle Formative period such processes were at play.

The careful reader will note that we have explicitly not commented on the specific mechanisms of exchange. This is due primarily to the early dates of the majority of the examples we discuss. Thus, any suggestion regarding the actual processes or modes of interaction would be purely conjectural. Nonetheless, Formative period material interaction (particularly ceramics and obsidian) is clearly evident archaeologically (see, e.g., Rosenswig 2010:235–241). This fact, coupled with a scholarly consensus that linguistic and artistic exchange occurred in tandem with material trade (see, e.g., Kaufman 1976; Lesure 2004), strongly suggests that iconography, aesthetic and scribal conventions, and writing itself were among the items or concepts being exchanged. This process would be analogous to the Formative period transfer of ceramic technologies, manufacturing techniques, or lithic industries—all of which have been extensively documented in the archaeological record in Mesoamerica (e.g., Blomster et al. 2005; Cheetham 2007, 2010; Grove 1993; Nelson and Clark 1998; Rosenswig 2010). Although Flannery’s (1976:285) “Real Mesoamerican Archaeologist” would disapprove, it seems more and more likely that intangible “ideas” were, in fact, exchanged along with material goods.

It is likewise probable that the knowledge required to produce and understand writing and scripts, like advanced iconography, would have been considered a prestige good (Clark and Blake 1994; Hayden 1998; Helms 1993; Plourde 2009).23 Conceiving of a script itself as a prestige good squares well with current conceptions of writing in other contexts (see, e.g., Baines 2004; John M. D. Pohl, personal communication, 2016). Further, such a conception naturally complements previous models (e.g., Demarest 1989; Flannery 1968) that view interregional exchange in the Formative period as linked to attempts to emulate or co-opt the prestige of the Gulf Coast Olmec, as discussed above. This possibility is particularly tantalizing for those instances in which extensive material, linguistic, and iconographic interaction with the Olmec and/or Mije-Soke speakers is evident, such as the Maya and Zapotec cases (see, e.g., Fields 1991; Justeson et al. 1985; Pohl et al. 2008; Quirarte 2007; Reilly 1991, 1996; Wichmann 1999; Wichmann et al. 2008). Of course, the paucity of evidence that speaks directly to early scripts severely complicates the archaeological validation of such a conception.

The examples we have presented illustrate formal and semantic continuity in various Middle Formative period iconographic motifs that were broadly distributed across Mesoamerica and widely shared among contemporaneous and subsequent artistic traditions and scripts. As Lacadena (2010:29) notes, writing systems are among the most conservative aspects of culture and highly resistant to change. It is therefore unlikely that such an evident degree of significant permanence—as well as shared sign inventories, formal traits, and orthographic conventions (see Justeson et al. 1985:41, table 16; Mora-Marín 2001:25–26, 355–360, tables 1.1–1.5)—would have developed independently within diverse Mesoamerican writing systems during Formative period script diversification. Rather, the very intransience of these characteristics across scripts and through time suggests a historical relationship among them that both reflects and stems from extensive interregional interaction (cf. Justeson and Matthews 1990; Mora-Marín 2001:25–26, 245–259).

Of course, we do not suggest that writing always emerges from the crucible of interaction. Nor does the identification of interaction in itself account for the development of writing. Rather, we hold that interregional interaction in part drove the processes of recontextualization and transmutation in Mesoamerican contexts. Although script development is not necessarily predicated entirely upon interaction, it is evident that interaction has the potential to act as a catalyst for the transference of signs and the generation of visual words from the iconography of the donor system. The reformulation and redeployment of shared motifs in distinct contexts potentially effect a structural transformation that gives rise to new frameworks in which to determine meaning and establish distinct, culturally specific connotations and/or grammatical-linguistic values. In this sense, the evident recontextualization of the motifs discussed above in one or more subsequent script traditions is key. Once severed from Formative period artistic canons and larger contextualizing programs, these motifs were enclosed within the emergent textual-linguistic conventions and organizational schemes of writing. In these new contexts, scribes were able to organize elements on a nonpictorial basis within a new syntax in which grammatical principles played a larger role in their interpretation than their relationship to overarching iconographic structures.

Conclusions

In this chapter, we have argued that interaction played a crucial role in the development of writing in Mesoamerica. Although many scholars have noted the existence of common visual elements across writing systems in the region—and suggested that such commonalities are indicative of interaction—the processes by which such shared motifs were incorporated into incipient writing and the question of how interaction factored in to script development remain relatively understudied. The critical transition from art to writing therefore eludes adequate explanation. Our goal in this contribution is to illuminate precisely this process of transition, thereby filling in lacunae in our understanding of the complex and highly contextualized developmental processes involved in Mesoamerican script development.

The numerous formal, ideological, ideographic, and representational-conventional associations that exist between Late Formative imagery, subsequent regional script traditions, and an antecedent Middle Formative iconographic complex imply historical relationships between differing representational systems that employed shared elements and motifs, which can only be explained by the prior transfer or diffusion of the antecedents to the same iconographic and scribal depictions and conventions. In Mesoamerica this source would appear to be the Middle Formative symbolic-ceremonial complex (Reilly 1995:29–30). Middle Formative period symbols of power and authority—artifactual, iconographic, and linguistic—were widely shared throughout Mesoamerica and subsequently adopted and deployed in differing spatial, temporal, and cultural contexts. In this sense, Mesoamerican scripts and systems of visual notation shared a common iconographic base, in terms of a collective core pictographic and ideographic visual vocabulary. In other words, interaction established a common iconographic complex that by necessity was understood similarly by linguistically diverse groups and/or a bilingual elite. This put the prestige or common strata imagery and conventions (or content and structure, to use linguistic terms) into conversation with local systems, conventions, and needs. This aspect of the process is perhaps the most difficult to fully dissect. It would, however, appear that common strata signs were redeployed and repurposed to achieve local goals, potentially imbued with new values and constrained within narrower, more culturally specific frameworks. Thus, multiple recontextualized interpretations and transmutations of the same sign emerged, facilitating the processes of script development and diversification. Although speculative, these possibilities—especially when considered in conjunction with other lines of evidence—offer a potential glimpse into the role of interaction in the development of Mesoamerican writing, in both primary and secondary contexts. In any case, it is clear that further research is necessary if we hope to resolve the various issues that emerge from studies such as the present one.

The list of motifs examined here is by no means exhaustive. There are numerous other signs that present similar genealogies entailing interaction and transference, such as crossed bands, the quatrefoil portal glyph, the Jester God diadem or fleur-de-lis element, seating glyphs, and a visual complex related to autosacrifice and bloodletting, to name but a few. These, like the examples presented here, also beg the question of what pressures, social or otherwise, were compelling the innovation of new and more conventional means of visual communication. They also illustrate the interplay between iconography and early writing, as Denise Schmandt-Besserat (2007) suggests. The limited examples that we have presented and discussed here serve to elucidate the role of interaction in the origins and development of writing, thereby illuminating the poorly understood processes behind script development in general and adding to a better theoretical understanding of the origins and role of writing in ancient Mesoamerica.

Acknowledgments. We thank Javier Urcid, and two anonymous reviewers, for comments and suggestions that substantially improved this chapter.

Notes

References