Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán also created a valuable record of the Mayan writing system, which, despite its inaccuracies, was later to prove instrumental in the decipherment of the writing system.
Landa asked his informants (his primary sources were two Maya individuals descended from a ruling Maya dynasty who were literate in the script) to write down the glyphic symbols corresponding to each of the letters of the (Spanish) alphabet, in the belief that there ought to be a one-to-one correspondence between them.
The results were faithfully reproduced by Landa in his later account, but he recognised that the set contained apparent inconsistencies and duplicates that he was unable to explain.
Later researchers reviewing this material also formed the view that the "de Landa alphabet" was inaccurate or fanciful, and many subsequent attempts to use the transcription remained unconvincing.
It was not until much later, in the mid-20th century, when it was realized and then confirmed that it was not a transcription of an alphabet, as Landa and others had originally supposed, but was rather a syllabary.
That was confirmed only by the work of Soviet linguist Yuri Knorozov in the 1950s and the succeeding generation of Mayanists.
Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán also created a valuable record of the Mayan writing system, which, despite its inaccuracies, was later to prove instrumental in the decipherment of the writing system. Landa asked his informants (his primary sources were two Maya individuals descended from a ruling Maya dynasty who were literate in the script) to write down the glyphic symbols corresponding to each of the letters of the (Spanish) alphabet, in the belief that there ought to be a one-to-one correspondence between them. The results were faithfully reproduced by Landa in his later account, but he recognised that the set contained apparent inconsistencies and duplicates that he was unable to explain. Later researchers reviewing this material also formed the view that the "de Landa alphabet" was inaccurate or fanciful, and many subsequent attempts to use the transcription remained unconvincing. It was not until much later, in the mid-20th century, when it was realized and then confirmed that it was not a transcription of an alphabet, as Landa and others had originally supposed, but was rather a syllabary. That was confirmed only by the work of Soviet linguist Yuri Knorozov in the 1950s and the succeeding generation of Mayanists.
Diego de Landa