A linguistic anthropologist states the hand positions carved on a 1,300-year-old Maya stone altar at Copán encode Long Count calendar dates through sign language, a claim that, if confirmed, would add a previously unrecognized layer to Maya writing, but one that other scholars call unlikely.
Rich Sandoval of Metropolitan State University of Denver analyzed Altar Q, a late-eighth-century rectangular monument depicting 16 Copán rulers on four sides, and argues in a paper published in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society that the rulers’ distinctive hand signs form a second script alongside traditional Maya hieroglyphs.
“This is the oldest text where, to my knowledge, anyone has been able to show that there’s a real, well-defined script using hand signs that’s on par with other kinds of writing,” Sandoval told online outlet Live Science. He said the hand signs are “rooted in sign language” and convey meanings distinct from, not simply redundant with, the hieroglyphic text.
Sandoval claims there are 16 hand signs on the Maya altar
Sandoval says the 16 hand signs divide into four groups, one on each panel of the altar, and represent four Long Count dates falling in the ninth bʼakʼtun of the Maya system. He identifies the panel dates as 9.0.2.0.0 (November 27, 437), 9.19.10.0.0 (April 30, 820), 9.16.13.12.0 (October 21, 764), and 9.17.5.0.15 (January 7, 776).
The Maya Long Count uses five place values, which are bʼakʼtun, kʼatun, tun, winal, and kʼin, represented left to right. A kʼin is one day; a winal is 20 days; a tun is 18 winals, or 360 days; a kʼatun is 20 tuns; and a bʼakʼtun is 20 kʼatuns, or 144,000 days. Sandoval links features of the altar’s upper rim and the four rulers’ heads to the bʼakʼtun value and interprets two repeated hand signs as variants of the glyph for zero.
EL Altar Q.
Año 776.
Obra Maya del reino de Copan, describe a toda una dinastía de reyes de Copan.
Cada uno de los 16 líderes, se muestrade cuerpo entero, 4 en cada lado, el monumento abarca 350 años de gobernantes sentado en un glifo con su nombre, excepto el fundador, sentado pic.twitter.com/i3d5omOSAI— Felipe A. Cruz (@FelipeCruz_593) November 21, 2023
Altar Q has long been recognized as a storied monument from the Classic Period. Its carved panels depict the royal lineage of Copán and hieroglyphic passages referring to a 64-day ritual. Sandoval says the hieroglyphs imply use of the Long Count but do not directly inscribe Long Count dates, which he sees as unusual and the clue that prompted him to test whether the hand positions supply the missing calendar information.
Sandoval’s theory is resisted by others in the scientific community
He proposes that each panel’s hand signs encode the kʼatun, tun, winal, and kʼin values of a date, read left to right, and argues that multiple independent lines of evidence, the hand-glyph forms, the distribution patterns, and correlations with nearby calendric texts, converge on the same readings.“If multiple weak lines of evidence point in the same direction, together they can be very convincing,” Sandoval said.
Not everyone is convinced. Alexandre Tokovinine, an anthropological archaeologist and Maya epigrapher at the University of Alabama, described the interpretation as “implausible,” stating that visual and textual data on the altar appear to have been manipulated to fit the hypothesis. Other specialists have long noted the importance of hand gestures in Maya art. However, the idea that they constitute a discrete, systematic script encoding Long Count dates is new and requires broader confirmation across Maya inscriptions.
Founder of #Copan – K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' (Pic 1: 2nd from the left). The main source of information about the #Maya ruler is Altar Q, The monument provides a fitting tribute to all the members of his dynasty, and to the importance placed upon dynastic continuity. @ahencyclopedia pic.twitter.com/z1hBYshy2E
— Arcos – Archaeology and Cosmos (@Rudolf_Eckhardt) August 26, 2019
Sandoval said his partial decipherment could provide a starting point for further work. “There are places where hand signs show up alongside hieroglyphs elsewhere,” he noted, and he urged colleagues to test the method against other monuments.
Altar Q, carved during the Classic Period (A.D. 250–900), remains central to debates over Maya written expression. Whether the hand signs prove to be a second script or an idiosyncratic artistic convention, the analysis underlines how much remains to be learned about how the Maya recorded time, ritual, and rulership.
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