[This article is part of the Learner's Maya Glyph Guide.]
CMGG entry for syllabogram t'a

Variant: o-like

                                 

Gronemeyer-FtG.p2.pdfp2.fig1 = MHD (Grube)

IKL Lintel 1 glyph-block B             IKL Lintel 1 glyph-block 2

<t’a:ba>.yi

 

                                   

Gronemeyer-FtG.p3.pdfp3.fig3            Gronemeyer-FtG.p4.pdfp4.fig4b        

UXM Capstone Block C                           PNG Looted Altar Support A5b

T’AB.<t’a:ba>                                            t’a:T’AB[*yi]

 

                                                                                                          

Gronemeyer-FtG.p6.pdfp6.fig5a block #3               Gronemeyer-FtG.p6.pdfp6.fig5b                  

XLM Lintel 1 Stone I Block C                                       Museo Amparo Jamb B3                    

<bo:t’a>.ja                                                                      <bo.ja>:t’a                                             

 

                                                                        =                             

Gronemeyer-FtG.p6.pdfp6.fig5c                                    Gronemeyer-FtG.p9.pdfp9.fig9a&b                              T226

Dumbarton Oaks Ceramic Vessel DO 114 A1               CHN Temple of the Four Lintels A8 (B4d?/D8?)         

<bo.ja>:t’a                                                                           t’a.<T226:li>                                                                      -

 

·    Do not confuse this glyph with the visually similar o and TE’:

o In Dumbarton Oaks Ceramic Vessel DO 114 A1 it looks slightly like TE’.

o In CHN Temple of the Four Lintels A8 it does indeed look like o; however, o often has a cross hatched area at the far end of the feather, which is absent in this one. Gronemeyer himself says that this one is very tentative and might in fact be a o after all. If it is a t’a, then he proposes that the “depressed man” glyph be read T’AL, with t’a as an initial phonetic complement (otherwise read as PAAT by other epigraphers).

·    The variant of t’a which looks like o is still just a proposal, in Gronemeyer-FtG.

·    For CHN Temple of the Four Lintels, a system of glyph-block labelling which assigns only 4 columns and 4 rows to the whole inscription would result in the glyph-block with the proposed t’a (and depressed man / T226 glyph) being the bottom quarter of B4 (= B4d, as it were, with B4a, B4b, B4c, B4d being each a quarter of a glyph-block). With a system with 8 columns and 8 rows, it would be D8.

 

Variant: tooth + torch

                                                        

TOK.p16.r4.c3                 BMM9.p6.pdfp6.c3.r1               MHD.ZYB                                1713st

?                                         t’a?                                                -                                               -

 

·    Features:

o The main part of the glyph is a “duckbill” shape – representing a “tooth” – with reinforced or bolded left wall and ceiling (optionally the right wall as well (1713st)).

o There’s an element in the middle of the glyph which can be:

§ A “wood property marker” (TOK.p16.r4.c3), or

§ A medium-sized circle (BMM9.p6.pdfp6.c3.r1), or

§ A bold circle (MHD.ZYB), or

§ A dot (1713st).

o On the left, “outside” the tooth, there’s the top half of a torch (the top of the bundle of sticks and two scrolls representing flames) sticking out at an angle.

·    TOK.p16.r4.c3 lists the “tooth + torch” glyph without pronunciation (and so there is no indication if it is a syllabogram or logogram), but BMM9 gives a tentative reading of t’a, with a question mark.

·    The original source of the proposal is not known to me (nor, indeed, do I know of any sources referring to this reading). Gronemeyer-FtG is a proposal for reading a hitherto undeciphered glyph as t’a, but not this one. Instead, it’s for the o-like glyph (see above).

·    Do not confuse this glyph (t’a?) with a whole set of glyphs with the “tooth” as the main outline of the glyph, but with various distinctive elements on the left:

o chu has an “axe”.

o ha has a “bone property marker”.

o k’e has one end of a “bone”.

o t’a? has a “torch” (this reading is still only a proposal).

o ye has two or more “cascades of dots”.