AMERINDIA 43: 291-322, 2021
Jean-Michel HOPPAN
SeDyL (Laboratoire Structure et Dynamique des Langues), CNRS
Alexandre SOLCÀ
Chercheur indépendant
DOI : https://doi.org/10.56551/IUEL1766
Abstract: Sign n° 42 in 1962 J. Eric S. Thompson’s “Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs”
(classified as grapheme 1G8 in 2003/2009 Martha J. Macri’s “New Catalog of Maya
Hieroglyphs”) was identified since more than one century ago as the distinctive sign of
the glyph that designates what epigraphers call a pictun (a time unit of 8000 tun or
counting years of 360 days, thus 2.880.000 days). Since a few decades, it is also
known to be -in other cases than in this context of temporal count- a logograph which
still awaits for a complete decipherment although it seems to have designated a natural
phenomenon that was potentially dangerous and was the main root of the ancient name
of the archaeological site of El Chorro (Peten, Guatemala). According to the authors’
analysis, this sign could have been possibly read as TOK « vapor » and « evaporate »,
TOK ’AN(IL) « vapor flow » or (TOK) TAN « ash, powder, lime »