An Analysis of the Ancient Zapotec Writing System

FAIN: RO-12175-75

Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1015)
Joyce Marcus (Project Director: June 1975 to present)

To carry out a 2-year study of the ancient Zapotec writing system. To draw and photograph approximately 200 prehistoric carved stone monuments with hieroglyphic inscriptions in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Another 300 monuments, lacking hieroglyphic inscriptions, will be photographically recorded but not necessarily drawn. The Zapotec writing system, whose roots go back to 400 B.C., is perhaps the least known of the writing systems of ancient Mesoamerica's high civilizations.