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FoolishConsistency17 t1_ix3dv63 wrote

He was brilliant and made a huge breakthrough, but the narrative that he did this "single handedly" really minimizes the work of the generation of epigraphers who took his insights and actually figured out how to read Maya.

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thatcantb t1_ix3ifeo wrote

And ignores the Spanish priest who wrote down the syllables in the first place.

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Givemeurhats t1_ix3j0ib wrote

This. Almost all we know about the Mayan language came from his book

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FoolishConsistency17 t1_ix3k456 wrote

Various Mayan languages are spoken by millions of people today.

As far as reading Mayan, it started the process of figuring it out. It was a first step, not the whole.

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