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The manuscript has extreme deficiencies of form and content. The central critical point of the hypothesis, that these people from KJ were Maya speakers ,I have heard discussed nowhere in the MS. The discussion on language relationships at KJ is silent on changes. Lowe, Kaufman, Cambel, Justeson, Norman, Hopkins and others have in numerous publications justified the view that the people from KJ spoke an early Mixe, a view that I found nowhere, although every full discussion must mention it.
If the language of KJ was Maya, which Maya does he mean? There are now 31 Maya Languages and from them he uses Yucatec Maya, it was certainly not spoken in the highlands! On pg. 4 he speaks briefly matter of factly on, his translations of the hieroglyphs into Yucatec. His basis, that the Maya script - like Chinese - was understood by speakers of different Maya Languages. The speech order also is ultimately relevant in clarifying, that he does not believe in the phonetic decipherments and his stance that the Maya script, like Thompson-Barthel-Gockel-Type, was "rebus writing". He has not given the last twenty years written research, omitting virtually all substantial recent publications on southern mesoamerican writing systems from his Bibliography. I simply don't understand, how one can just ignore the wealth of epigraphy from recent years. Myself, when one does not believe in the arguments of the phoneticists, one should at least discuss this viewpoint. The proofs for the logosyllabic character of the Maya script (and other mesoamerican scripts) are so reliable and undoubted that [this omission] signifies Porter must simply be ignorant. That he would send his book to germany, rests naturally on the internationally known readiness of German Professors and Publishers to publish books, that are full of unsupported assumptions, despite their deficiencies. Porter certainly knows accurately, that his book has no chance in US publications. Here in germany we even have a long Barthel tradition, where whomsoever although unschooled can publish. When we desire, we should abstain from such anachronistic work.
In his discussion of earlier work on Stela 10 I miss the essay from Maricela Ayala, Federico Fahsen and Peter Mathews on the development of Maya writing, which refers to Stela 10's position.
The minuteness of detail in the section "Discovery and Excavations" I find senseless. Indeed it was written Lot by Lot, but at the end one does not arrive with Porter at a date of "First Millennium BC". This hypocracy emerges from the excavation notes, that Stela 10 was found in (early) Miraflores/Arenal contexts (strictly speaking there is no Miraflores context, separate from Arenal and Verbena, when he speaks of ceramic phases. Miraflores is not a separate ceramic phase it is a place). But this also is precisely what is said by every other Archaeologist or Iconographer who has thus handled Stela 10. Not new either. Where then the early dating? Parsons begins the earliest Miraflores in 200 BC. This is late Preclassic, but not "First Millennium BC". I see in the entire work no place where he establishes that date, and yes remarkably precise it is.
I can countenance the hieroglyph readings and the iconographic analysis just one time repeated, what I prepared in my comment on his article submitted to Mexicon said: "the analysis of the inscription is extremely naive. Porter compares the KJ glyph drawing with Maya glyph drawing, this resemblance, and carrying over the Maya interpretation without any problematizing these forgoing from Stela 10. This is a cardinal failing of the script analysis, to me like Hrozny's identification of Easter Island script with Harappan writing. On the resemblance, to see it one must have a tolerance for impressions. Sure there are a few drawings, the like which are included in Maya script. But this is also true for the la Mojarra Stela (which Porter scarcely knows- which is why he says not a word on the article from Kaufman and Justeson on Epiolmec script in Science 3/1993?), which is certainly not written in any Maya speech. A profound analysis of the KJ text must first prove that such parallels are overall permissible, and that besides the graphic similarities also the meanings are similar.
When Porter speaks about Yucatec readings, he makes linguistic errors. On pg. 35 he translates the day sign Kan with "Serpent/Speech/Four, etc. The day sign named is K'an, it is glottalized, and has then a completely different significance (namely yellow, maiz, etc.) The title Batab (pg. 35) is not "Ax Earth/Hand" as he analyzes it. Further, on the root <u>bat</u> "Axt/schlagen" + instrumental/applicative <u>-ab</u>. His orthography for the Yucatec Maya mixes the orthography of the 16th century (employing c for unglottalized k) with the orthography of the Cordemex dictionary. Although in both orthographies glottalized consonants are also written, he writes Zotz in place of Zodz (16th cent) or Sotz' (Cordemex)(pg.42).
The interpretation of the two Tzolk'in dates rests on the acceptance, of the head variants of the day signs seen in KJ 10 as those known in the Classic lowlands. The "rodent" variant of Muluk is itself extremely rare in the lowlands and appears first in 730 AD at Copan.
Porter would designate the text from Stela 10 as the oldest of the connected mesoamerican texts. What's with the Chalchuapa fragment, the bone fragment from Kichpanha, the new early texts from Abaj Takalik, Nakbe Stela 1? It is true that none of these monuments were precisely dated, but neither is Stela 10. Nonetheless, there are no proofs for that, that it is older than the afornamed texts!
His assertion, it is "widely recognized" that Moon is called <u>ah</u> or <u>u</u> is false. Moon is called <u>uh</u> in Yucatecc Maya. It is also not certain that the Moon sign can stand for the numeral twenty. My tip: clean your glasses and look for once! The moon sign has three dots in the center, the numeral sign twenty has only one:
For ca. 20 years the majority of researchers have known this (and even Thompson 1950 had already known these distinctions).
The assertion, that main signs in Maya script signify roots (pg.44), rests on Thompson and Barthel. This is in the meanwhile so antique though, that one does not use these anachronisms to comment anymore. As Kohl followed Adenauer, can Porter thus return to Thompson. With the CDU thus in the fiftieth year.
In footnote 26 Porter casts doubt on the Mixe-Zoque placement of the Olmecs. His basis is particularly threadbare; ultimately basing this identification on no more than a colonial period language map. The article from Campbell and Kaufman on Olmec as Mixe-Zoque is wholly unknown to him, then would he find therein completely different evidence than the contact period language distribution.
The literary record has no unified format and cites scarcely any publications, the most recent being ten years old. That in a field, in which parameters constantly change! Various references in the text are missing from the Bibliography (where is Wetherington 1978 which was cited on pg.4?).
The citations are not in a homogeneous style, the stratigraphic figures are insuperable, part handwork and part made from forms.
The excavation reports and diverse artifact enumerations are monotonous extensive and not properly reported.
The title itself is nonsense: ..Stela 10...a throne..; one must rather write Stela 10...a monument and clarify later why it is a throne.
Who has written the preface (Shook?); an unknown third person. It has constant major errors: The Guatemalan Museo de Antropologia e Historia is not; as he says: Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Ethnologia; Merle Green Robertson, is called Green<u>e</u>!; Dora Gonzales is: Gonzalez; etc.
The references and Bibliography are sloppy, incomplete and show grave errors.
pg. 4: Champoleon = Champollion?
pg. 5: further false: Museo Nacional de Arqueologia e Historia.....
pg. 6: horrible: he clarifies references and Proskouriakoff's A Study of Maya Art; this Title was applied to Spinden 1913, Porter means "A study of Classic Maya Sculpture", also false in the bibliography.
pg.8 further Green stated as Greene
Bibliography: Personal names are not written, although employed this omission is very uncommon and the place of publication is left out; the reverse is the usual.
pg. 48: Coe 1982 the title is false and incomplete.
pg. 49, Demarest 1984, a periodical without page citations is insuperable, again Green = Greene.
pg. 50: McQuown is dreadful.
pg. Porter 1993 given as if not a MS.
pg. 52: Stuart and Stuart...NGS too brief (like HBMA, etc) not clear and inelegant.
These were just a few of the notes on the pages, that this MS from a specialist with many years record standing, and having worked at the UCB, has not yet arrived at an acceptable MS, he must work more.
Karl H. Mayer
