Mayan Hieroglyphic Pendant

Woot! Got it done. It’s not as visually appealing as I’d like, but it’s as good as I can get it, and still pretty good.

Also, I am kind of extra proud at how I worked this.

The word spelled out in Roman script is Jti’vanej (Tzotzil), and the characters used are j-ti-va-ne (The classical forms Yucatec and/or Ch’olan, are ix-ti-wa-ne). This is going to be a Christmas present for my niece I nicknamed Jti’vanej since she was tiny, heh.

The personage marker j- written with the ix- feminine marker. (One of the holes in my knowledge with Tzotzil is I don’t know how prevalent, or if it’s used at all, the feminine marker is. So, this way it could actually go either way. If it’s rare, or non-existent that Tzotzil uses the feminine marker x-, well, it could still be read exactly the same. So I should, in theory, have no problem using the feminine marker character for the personage marker j- prefix).

Also, you’ll note how shiny it is, that’s because I decided to just spray a glaze over it. I didn’t want to, but I was having issues with attempting to polish it.

This one is where I moved it so you can see how faint it is when there’s no light shining on it. Meh, it’ll do.

And holy mackerel, my body gave me a short period of time of light dizziness and I got all the gunk from the glues cleaned out, and added a little more detail, too. WOOOOOOOOOOT!

Here is the stone just before cutting and shaping, testing to see how well the bits will work.

And lastly, my setup. I got the flex cable with a cheap rotary tool (that cost 1/3 of what this subpar dremel did, :no_mouth:). Anyway, I tested it to make sure it’d work, and I’m really surprised, it worked just beautifully. Since I have trouble dropping things, it made it so I could keep the dremel as far from the water as possible. Plus, hanging it from the ladder made it so I wouldn’t put too much of a kink into the cable while working (which would keep the cable from over heating), and that worked wonderfully.

The tub was used for the water and give me plenty of space for my hands to move in and out of. It fit onto a folding chair, so it lowered it to keep my back from hurting too much.



And this was something my nephew had that he left here. I really didn’t want to buy any grease for the dremel flex cable, so I used it, and other than making a little mess, it worked just fine to keep the cable from overheating.

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WOW! First, what a thoughtful and personalized gift! Second, MAYAN HIEROGLYPHIC! :exploding_head: Third, carving rock is so dang awesome. And finally, it’s really cool looking! Like, WHOA.

Thanks for sharing your setup, too. It’s amazing how much better a project can go when some thoughtful time goes into making your “work station” work well.

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I really like how it turned out!

Really neat and thoughtful gift. :heart:

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It turned out so darn cool and I’m sure it will be treasured.

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Mayan glyphs are just HARD. You rocked this and I’m ridiculously impressed. Fangirling a little, if I’m honest. I hope she treasures this because it’s amazing.

Although I had already had some experience with the writing, it still amazes me. Now, although I have no experience with the dialects that were written, but the Tzotzil dialect can be considered fairly poetic. Which I would not be at all surprised that the dialects that were written were just as prone for poetic speech. Because, each scribe had their own spelling rules, and no doubt each scribe from each city state within that dialect sphere could read any other scribe’s writings without any confusion. Thus, in my opinion, one could consider the hieroglyphics a form of poetry in itself.

The only other alphabet I know of off hand that morphs their alphabet in a manner similar to the Maya would be Vietnamese. The Vietnamese calligraphy writing could be considered, in my opinion, a visual poetry, art, and expression. (Which, I wish I could figure out Vietnamese calligraphy, heh. My niece’s brother has a strong bond towards his Vietnamese side of his family and he would love to have something like that).

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This is phenomenally cool. I love everything about it. I loved seeing your progress in the snapshot thread, too. Seriously amazing project!

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That is really cool! What an awesome object! I feel inspired to try carving some of the jasper pieces I found in Idaho this summer.

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This is beautiful, you lost me with some of the explanation but that’s okay. What kind of stone did you use? The final product looks like jade.

No clue really. My father-in-law didn’t remember, as it was somethrng he had sliced off a larger rock many years ago. However, I did choose it specifically for its color, as the Maya did use jade.

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