The imposing pyramids of Teotihuacan, in Mexico, bear the traces of a major civilization over two thousand years old. One mystery persists, however: no one knows for certain who built this great city. The numerous symbols adorning its walls and objects could finally reveal part of the answer, according to new scientific work.
A team from the University of Copenhagen, led by Magnus Pharao Hansen and Christophe Helmke, examined these marks and proposes that they form a true writing system. Their conclusions, published in
Current Anthropology, suggest that this writing records an ancient language from the Uto-Aztecan family, related to the Nahuatl spoken later by the Aztecs.
This linguistic clue broadens our view of the past. By reconstructing an archaic form of Nahuatl, the scientists were able to compare the texts of Teotihuacan with this model language. They estimate that groups speaking an ancestral Nahuatl could have lived in the city long before its abandonment. In this way, it becomes possible to weave links between cultures that seemed separate, introducing continuity into the Mesoamerican narrative.
The approach to interpreting these signs is methodical. Some symbols act as logograms, directly representing concepts or objects, like a coyote to designate the animal. Others operate on the rebus principle, where the sounds evoked by images combine to form more abstract terms. A fine knowledge of historical pronunciation is essential for an accurate reading, which requires close collaboration between linguists and archaeologists.
If these findings are confirmed, they could change our understanding of regional history. Teotihuacan would no longer be an isolated entity, but a cultural crossroads that exerted a lasting influence. The implications concern the persistence of languages and traditions.
The work continues with the goal of discovering new inscriptions to support these hypotheses. Their method, based on linguistic reconstruction and contextual analysis, could serve as a model for future research. This discovery also invites a reexamination of other artifacts and could help solve other comparable archaeological puzzles.
Example of a linear text in Teotihuacan writing painted in three columns on the floor of the Plaza de los Glifos.
Credit: Christophe Helmke, University of Copenhagen How do logograms work in ancient scripts?
Logograms are symbols that represent whole words or ideas, rather than individual sounds. In many cultures, such as ancient Egypt or China, these visual signs allow for direct communication, where a drawing of a house can mean "house" or related concepts like "shelter" or "family". This visual simplicity facilitates the transmission of basic information, but it limits the expression of complex or abstract terms.
To overcome this limitation, writing systems often combine logograms with phonetic elements. For example, in Teotihuacan writing, some symbols act as rebuses: the image of an object evokes the sound of its name, and these sounds are assembled to form other words. This requires an in-depth knowledge of the spoken language of the time, as pronunciations evolve over time, making interpretation more delicate.
Studying these mechanisms helps researchers read ancient texts. By identifying recurring logograms and their contexts of use, they can establish correspondences with known languages. This method was crucial for interpreting scripts like Maya or Linear B, and it now applies to Teotihuacan.