Cultures of Creativity: Hieroglyphic Innovation in the Classic Maya Lowlands

Abstract

Classic Maya hieroglyphic writing displays a coherence across time and space that points to intensive, sustained communication among scribes about what they were writing and how. Yet we know little about what scribal transmission looked like on the ground or what knowledge scribes were conveying among themselves. This article examines the monumental hieroglyphic corpora from two communities, at Copan in western Honduras and at Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico, to illustrate local processes of innovation and exchange that shaped participation in regional transmission. I argue that distinct ‘cultures of creativity’ developed at Copan and Palenque from local elites’ varying understanding of their position in the Maya world and the nature of hieroglyphic inventions. These case studies attest to the multi-faceted nature of scribal production and exchange within a hieroglyphic tradition that remained largely coherent despite never being centrally administered. In addition, the study's palaeographic methods suggest possibilities for tracing dynamics of cultural innovation and transmission in the ancient past at multiple scales of society.