Article in other languages:
Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson (31 December 1898 – 9 September 1975) was an English archeologist and Mayanist epigrapher, regarded as the pre-eminent mid-20th century scholar of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. He was generally known as J. Eric S. Thompson in print and Eric Thompson to his colleagues.
Contents |
Biography
Thompson was born in London, educated at Winchester College and studied anthropology at Fitzwilliam House, University of Cambridge.
In 1925 he began working under Dr. Sylvanus Morley of the Carnegie Institution on the archeological project at Chichen Itza. He took his new bride honeymooning through the jungle by mule to make one of the first explorations of the Maya site of Coba.
Thompson was, as he himself noted, of the last generation of "generalist" archeologists in the field, engaging in activities from finding and mapping new sites, excavation, study of Maya ceramics, art and iconography, Maya script, some ethnology on the side, and writing books for both technical and lay audiences.
Thompson conducted a number of excavations at sites in British Honduras (present-day Belize). He was one of the first in the field to investigate and excavate smaller sites in areas away from the elite ceremonial centers, to learn more about the lives of common Maya people.
Expanding on the earlier work of Joseph T. Goodman and Juan H. Martinez-Hernandez, (largely neglected by other scholars at the time), Thompson developed the correlation between the Maya calendar and the Gregorian calendar that became generally accepted.
Thompson did considerable work in deciphering of Maya hieroglyphics, especially those related to the calendar and astronomy, as well as identifying some new nouns. He developed a numerical cataloguing system for the glyphs (the T-number system), which, with some expansions, is still used by Mayanists today. He initially supported Morley's contention that history was not to be found in the inscriptions, but changed his position in light of the work of Tatiana Proskouriakoff in the 1960s.
His attempted decipherments were based on ideographic rather than linguistic principles. In his later years he resisted the notion that the glyphs have a strong phonetic component, as put forward by the Russian linguist Yuri Knorozov. After his death, for a time some younger Maya epigraphers blamed Thompson for holding back what became a very fruitful approach to the glyphs with his forceful and articulate disagreements. This sort of criticism seems, however, to rest on a gross overestimation of the actual power wielded by Thompson. Michael D. Coe, one of the most prominent proponents of the phonetic approach while Thompson was still alive, has said that the degree of hostility was unwarranted. In any case, the value and correctness of the phonetic approach was not so obvious in the 1960s and early 1970s as it would become in retrospect with the later progress in Maya decipherment.
Thompson had an erudite but inviting writing style, often displaying a dry wit. He wrote an autobiography covering his early career in the field, Maya Archeologist.
Thompson was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975. He died shortly thereafter the same year in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire.
Notes
 |
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (May 2009) |
References
- Coe, Michael D. (1992). Breaking the Maya Code. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05061-9. OCLC 26605966.
- Coe, Michael D. (1999). The Maya. Ancient peoples and places series (6th edition, fully revised and expanded ed.). London and New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28066-5. OCLC 59432778.
- Coe, Michael D.; and Mark van Stone (2005). Reading the Maya Glyphs (2nd edition ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28553-4. OCLC 60532227.
- Freidel, David A.; Linda Schele and Joy Parker (1993). Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path. New York: William Morrow & Co.. ISBN 0-688-10081-3. OCLC 27430287.
- Harris, John F.; and Stephen K. Stearns (1997). Understanding Maya Inscriptions: A Hieroglyph Handbook (2nd edition ed.). Philadelphia: University Museum Publications, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. ISBN 0-924171-41-3. OCLC 34077021.
- Houston, Stephen D. (1989). Reading the Past: Maya Glyphs. London: British Museum Publications. ISBN 0-7141-8069-6. OCLC 18814390.
- Houston, Stephen D. (1992). "Classic Maya Politics". in Elin C. Danien and Robert J. Sharer (eds.). New Theories on the Ancient Maya. University Museum Monograph series, no. 77. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. pp. 65–70. ISBN 0-924171-13-8. OCLC 25510312.
- Houston, Stephen D.; David Stuart and Karl Taube (2006). The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience Among the Classic Maya. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71294-2. OCLC 61660268.
- Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. ISBN 0-306-46158-7. OCLC 42692203.
- Schele, Linda; and David Freidel (1992). A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya (pbk reprint ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-688-11204-8. OCLC 145324300.
- Sharer, Robert J.; with Loa P. Traxler (2006). The Ancient Maya (6th edition (fully revised) ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4816-0. OCLC 28067148.
- Stuart, George E. (1992). "Quest for Decipherment: A Historical and Biographical Survey of Maya Hieroglyphic Investigation". in Elin C. Danien and Robert J. Sharer (eds.). New Theories on the Ancient Maya. University Museum Monograph series, no. 77. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. pp. 1–64. ISBN 0-924171-13-8. OCLC 25510312.
See also
External links
- J.E.S.Thompson biography
- The J.E.S.Thompson collection at the Field Museum, Chicago
- Cracking the Maya Code PBS Website
Questions for article: