[Aztlan] Reversed glyphs

[Sam Edgerton]

Listeros: In response to Nick's doubts about reversed glyphs being intended 
for a divine audience, let me add to the opposing argument by suggesting 
that even if the gods wouldn't or couldn't see such inscriptions from above 
or behind, reversed writings such as Yaxchilan Lintel 25  may have been 
meant to be read, not by, but TO the gods. One may imagine a Maya priest, 
perhaps holding an obsidian mirror (as has already been proposed) 
reflecting the message which he would then repeat viva voce into the mirror 
as an i-phone-like "psychic duct." In the case of the facing 
left/right-right/left inscriptions in Copan Temple 11, one might also 
imagine a ritual in which the priest first reads the  left/right message to 
those on high, and then turns counter-clockwise (the preferred Mesoamarican 
processional direction) to read the opposite side from right to left.
Sam Edgerton