Der Maya Code DOKU ARTE 2012 from Doku Dog on Vimeo.
Bereits mehrfach ausgestrahlte Doku zur Entzifferung der Schrift der Maya. Entweder auf Vimeo (siehe oben) oder am kommenden Samstag den 29. Juni zur Primetime um 20:15 Uhr oder in der Wiederholung Sonntag-Morgen um 10:10 Uhr auf Arte zu sehen:
Lange Zeit konnte die Schrift der Maya, deren Ursprünge bis ins erste Jahrhundert nach Christus zurückreichen, nicht entschlüsselt werden. Die Konquistadoren hatten die meisten Exemplare der Bücher vernichtet. Erst im letzten Jahrhundert gelang Forschern die Entzifferung der Schrift
Lesen Sie weiter auf Arte: Der Maya-Code.
Quetzal schrieb über die gut gemachte Dokumentation:
Es ist eine Stärke des Films, dass er den Prozess der Entschlüsselung der Maya-Glyphen nachvollziehbar macht. Das System der Zahlen oder der Zusammensetzung der Glyphen wird gut erklärt, sodass der Zuschauer wenigstens ansatzweise verstehen kann, worum es in diesem Schriftsystem geht – das ist ja bei der Komplexität der Schreibweisen nicht gerade einfach.
Zur weiteren Information:
- Die SLUB Dresden stellt ein informatives Dossier zur Maya-Handschrift Codex Dresdensis zur Verfügung.
- Die Mesoamerikanische Gesellschaft Hamburg gibt heute Abend Einblick in das spannende Leben des Maya-Forschers und Fotografen Teobert Maler: Passion und Schicksal. Lebensgeschichte eines Maya-Forschers (27.6., 18:15 Uhr, Stabi Hamburg).
Dear Mr. Lebrun,
I have seen your film „The Breaking of the Maya Code“ with great interest, as I am a Korean translator (between German and Korean) and was therefore curious about the problem of decoding an unknown language. I have seen it on arte TV in the German version. I’m sorry to confront you with a harsh critique of the movie.
Quite all the while the film created the impression, as if the decoding work was the sole triumphant effort of the European/American people. The Maya themselves allegedly did not have any interest for their own writing. Only white people could scientifically mentor and evaluate it. Only parenthetically you mentioned at the end of the film that some Maya people, successors of the writers, have themselves helped you very much while decoding the writing.
At the end of it, I was appalled and could not trust my ears hearing that the whole effort was a „great gift“ of the white men to the Maya people, to learn them how to read their own scripture, followed by a cheesy commentary that a language signifies the „identity of a people“, that only by one’s national language one could feel to be part of the universe etc. But this is exactly the point you should think about!
I cannot spare you a moral admonition:
As a Maya I would firstly expect a severe apology, accompanied by a deep bow: „It was us who have killed, tortured, exploited and looted you over hundreds of years. We deeply regret that we have destroyed your identity as a nation, that we forbade your language, that we stole your treasures, that we’re making until today good fortunes by bombastic expositions by the kind of „The Culture of Maya“ and rake in the fame of „our latest discoveries“ in books and movies.
But the narrator instead was saying „It is a GIFT for you!“ – „What a gift? Thank you very much!“
It’s simply another insult and humiliation in the face of the Mayas.
How can you develop the narration of a film out of such an ethnocentric perspective?
I am powerless and I am only an inoffensive Asian, but anyway I like to tell you one thing: Never dare to make such a film about Korea! Thus I would become immediately racist against your occidental arrogance. Please reprieve me from ever touching my culture in the same manner.
Yours sincerely
Seon-Jeong Noh, Berlin.