A Semiotic Comparison of Mayan and Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Relation to Cosmological Beliefs

Hieroglyphs, as a formal writing system, encode information reflective of a culture’s beliefs and worldviews and comprise inscriptions that represent objects (logograms), ideas (ideograms), or sounds (alphabetic or syllabic). In this thesis, I employ semiotics, the study of how meanings are created by signs and symbols, to investigate Late Classic Maya (~250-990 CE) and Middle Period Egyptian (2240- 990 BCE) hieroglyphs that are associated with cosmological beliefs. In particular, I focus on Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphs of birds and snakes as well as many other hieroglyphs of nature and celestial bodies. A semiotic approach provides new insights into the understanding of how such hieroglyphs serve as visual signs to provide new knowledge about similarities in culturally constructed meanings in relation to cosmological beliefs? They do this by highlighting the interconnectedness of cultures through their view of what surrounds them in everyday life and how they interpret these symbols. Advisor: Heather Richards-Rissetto