Multimedia Gallery
Early "New World" Writings
Early "New World" Writings
Cylinder Seal from San Andres, Tabasco, Mexico, showing the glyphs, including 3 Ajaw, the name of a day in the 260-day Mesoamerican calendar. This is the earliest known representation on the ritual calendar date.
This cylinder seal was recovered together with a large collection of cotidian and ritual pottery, faunal remains, several human cranial fragments, greenstone artifacts and figurine fragments dating to the seventh century B.C. The seal was used to produce a printed image of a bird with two early versions of the Mesoamerican speech scroll associated with two glyphs.
The discovery was made by Mary E.D. Pohl of Florida State University, Kevin O. Pope of Geo Eco Arc Research and Christopher von Nagy of Tulane University. Pohl's research was funded primarily by the National Science Foundation. To learn more about the discovery, see NSF press release PR 02-97. (Date of Image: 1998)
Credit: Christopher von Nagy
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