"What you're doing is learning two systems: words that are foreign and symbols that are foreign - it's doubly foreign," said John Harris, a Mayan hieroglyph expert and volunteer at the museum.
The enthusiasts pored over reproductions in their workbooks of the stone carvings, trying to understand the rhythms and voices from the distant past.
There were symbols to understand, subtle shifts to watch out for, and rules that those temperamental Maya artists kept breaking all the time - all in the name of artistic freedom, of course.
At times it was like trying to read e.e. cummings while learning English. ''Aren't those letters supposed to be capitalized?" Or "What's a comma doing there?" Or "Why are the lines broken up haphazardly like that?"
Great poetry? Phooey! Gives me a headache.
"The writer is saying, 'Stop! Pay attention!' " said Nicholas A. Hopkins, a Mayan glyph expert who conducted the beginner's workshop. "There will be things missing, things that shouldn't be there.
"If you want to get the reader's attention, break the rules."
(I;
Know;
What;
You;
Mean;
Nick.
Just;
Tell;
It;
To;
My;
Editors.)
For participants at the workshop, learning how the glyphs were cracked suddenly brought into sharp focus all the things they did most of the time without thinking: which way to read a line, for instance. Was it left to right and top to bottom, or in a zigzag along every two columns or zigzags every two rows?
"These monuments were for literate people," Hopkins said. "It made sense if you read it one way and it doesn't make sense any other way. And once you have rules, you're going to have artists who are going to break those rules."
