Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1997 - 55

Then he will affix a sheet of translucent Mylar to the
All Mayanists agree on the importance of Graham's
acetate and trace the entire drawing in ink one last
work. In the years since the Corpus was conceived, scholtime. Finally he will add stippling to help the reader's
ars have gone from being able to read about ten perbetween
the
and
backcent of the hieroglyphs to as much as 70 percent. "The
eyè distinguish
foreground
of
a
This
is
tedious
'You
need
to
relief.
work.
ground
Corpus project was driving the decipherment," says Stuhave something of a totally bovine nature like me," he
art. "In epigraphy, the more examples you have, the
faster it goes. Only by the midsays with a smile, "to go all the time,
dot dot dot dot dot. I sometimes find
seventies did scholars have hunin
time
with
dreds of texts to work with, due
myself stippling insanely
1
the oom pah pah on the radio."
I
primarily to Ian." Scheie agrees,
When monuments are badly weathnoting the "kind of democratic
access to the material" that the
ered, Graham uses dotted lines to
show where he is less sure of his readCorpus provides. "This access is
can't
is
to
show
what
be
one
of two major factors that
ing. "My job
read as well as what can," he explains.
have opened up epigraphy," she
In a 1980 review in the journal Amerisays. "The other is copy macan Antiquity, James A. Fox of Stanford
chines." So far, 16 volumes of the
criticized
the
for
its
University
Corpus
Corpus have appeared, covering
conservative
assert17
sites, and there are about 220
generally
readings,
that
the
showed
no
more
sites
to go. Of these, Graham has
ing
drawings
detail than the photographs alongside
the raw materials for about 30;
them. But Graham believes it is impormost of the rest have hardly any
tant to record eroded hieroglyphs as
After Graham reinscriptions.
as
to
avoid
readStuart
take over. "I have
will
tires,
impartially
possible
into
an
that
a
the
ing
inscription something
feeling
Corpus will last far
is not there. Epigraphers in search of
beyond my days," says Stuart. "It's
what Fox called more "daring" readone of those projects that will
take
of
Graham's
take decades to complete."
may
ings
advantage
invitation, in the introduction to the
Ian Graham was born in 1923 in
Corpus, to visit the Peabody and examine the original materials.
the tiny village of Campsey Ash,
In the same conservative spirit, Grain Suffolk, England, where his faham decided to omit translations of
ther, a younger son of a Scottish
texts
from
the
was a farmer. He can claim
duke,
hieroglyphic
Corpus.
one
that
could
translate
descent
from both King Charles I
"Anything
and his executioner, Oliver Cromnow, in three years, five years, ten
well, whose shrivelled, embalmed
years would be hopelessly out of date,"
he says. "Interpretations have no place
head he was shown as a child.
in the Corpus." David Stuart, a master
of the
(After the restoration
is
current
who
Graham's
Cromwell's
epigrapher
monarchy,
body was
exhumed and hanged from the
collaborator, agrees, but he envisions
the Corpus growing beyond the "big
gallows at Tyburn, in London,
red books." More interpretive
then taken down and deworks, perhaps including a
Graham'sdrawingofstela18 showselementsof thecarvingnot
capitated. His head was
of
Classic
in
visible
the
where
the
monudictionary
Mayan,
impaled on a spike and
photograph,facingpage,particularly
mentis eroded.Stipplingdistinguishesbackground
which Stuart is compiling,
exhibited for a while at
fromforeground.
be
under
Westminster
Hall, and
might
published
the umbrella of the Corpus but outside the current
found
its
into
the
hands
of
a
eventually
way
village parseries of volumes. Jeremy A. Sabloff, the director of the
son near Graham's home.) Although Graham calls
himself a country boy, technology has always been his
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
voices
a
sentiment
common
Anthropology,
among
ruling passion. He learned about mechanics and work"Ian
has
a
rich
and
of
Mayanists:
deep
understanding
shop practice from a handyman, radio electronics from
ancient Maya civilization. I would like to see him write
the parson, and photography from his nanny. By the
down more of his interpretations. The Corpus is not the
time he was 11, he was a published photographer, a picfor
but
it
would
be
unfortunate
for
the
field
ture of his church's nativity play having appeared in a
that,
place
if he did not utilize the vast empirical knowledge he has
local newspaper. At 13, he was sent to Winchester, a
accumulated."
boarding school established in the fourteenth century,
September/October

1997

Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1997

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