Publication

Retrieving Ancient Maya Glyphs with Shape Context

2009
Conference Papers

Abstract

We introduce an interdisciplinary project for archaeological and computer vision research teams on the analysis of the ancient Maya writing system. Our first task is the automatic retrieval of Maya syllabic glyphs using the Shape Context descriptor. We investigated the effect of several parameters to adapt the shape descriptor given the high complexity of the shapes and their diversity in our data. We propose an improvement in the cost function used to compute similarity between shapes making it more restrictive and precise. Our results are promising, they are analyzed via standard image retrieval measurements.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/b8b19411-6f75-4570-a793-d35a8cdcb677

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2009
Conference Papers

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/b8b19411-6f75-4570-a793-d35a8cdcb677

About this result

Related concepts (32)

Ancient Maya art

Ancient Maya art is the visual arts of the Maya civilization, an eastern and south-eastern Mesoamerican culture made up of a great number of small kingdoms in present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Many regional artistic traditions existed side by side, usually coinciding with the changing boundaries of Maya polities. This civilization took shape in the course of the later Preclassic Period (from c. 750 BC to 100 BC), when the first cities and monumental architecture started to develop and the hieroglyphic script came into being.

Maya script

Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Mesoamerican writing systems

Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, is one of three known places in the world where writing is thought to have developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. They are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription.