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FoolishConsistency17 t1_ix4rfd2 wrote

Reply to comment by hillo538 in Yuri Knorozov: The Maverick Scholar Who Cracked The Maya Code by tyrannosauru

What? No. He was working off photographs. I don't think he ever saw a glyph in person until after he published his research.

He almost lost his own work in a fire, iirc.

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hillo538 t1_ix4sbzm wrote

I’m talking about the Berlin affair, where research pertaining to the Mayan codices (a good amount under fascist hands at this point) were retained and sent to the ussr by this guy, not that he went to Mexico himself or anything

I remember this anecdote well, because most of the written text in this language had been previously systematically destroyed by European powers

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