MAAYA: Multimedia Analysis and Access for Documentation and Decipherment of Maya Epigraphy

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Nikolai Grube
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology ; Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing
• Term: from 2013 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 229211969

The MAAYA Project focuses on investigating Maya writing and iconography and developing new Machine-based methods and approaches for semi-automatic recognition of visual elements and discovery of meaningful patterns within Maya writing and iconography which have been overlooked or require considerable more time by more traditional manual- and browsing based analyses. The project will develop these automated methods ("Machine vision") and test them on the base of the Maya codices and inscriptions from Yucatan. The system is set to compare script passages and visual elements and to study complex relationships and interplay between text and image across datasets recorded on different media (i.e. codices vs. monumental inscription datasets) by means of creating a large script- and iconography database. This database will lay the ground for the detection of associations between images, visual features (colours, shapes, clusters of symbols) and hieroglyphic signs. The database requires production of high-quality vectorial visualizations supporting visual data retrieval- and text mining search engines. In doing so, our project also seeks to palliate long-standing research gaps concerning documentation and analyses of ancient Yucatan textual records, which have received considerable less scholarly attention than their counterparts in the central and southern Maya lowlands. The analysis of these texts will enable us to determine the places of origin of the tree codices. Furthermore, we will be able to trace the diachronic development of Maya writing in the Yucatan peninsula from the Classic period until the Spanish Conquest.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants