A while back, I bought Andrea Stone & Marc Zender’s Reading Maya Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Maya Painting and Sculpture, and checked out a number of similar books from the library. I skimmed and enjoyed them, and then returned them.

I went to a Chipotle in Philadelphia, looked at the wall, and realized their design was more than just decoration. There, looking back at me, was K’awiil, also known as God K.

Next to K’awiil was a glyph representing a lord, possibily Juun Ajaw, one of the Hero Twins. All over the wall was seeing bits and pieces of legible, decipherable Classic era Mayan art. Here, the glyph for mountain. There, a shark.

[T]he wood and metal sculptures at many (or maybe all) Chipotle locations were provided by a company named Mayatek Inc.

The short story is, there are deviations, but the art is surprisingly accurate (for a restaurant) on a number of the glyphs (albeit, most are picked at random rather than for their original significance or lexical meaning). Or at least spitting distance. Though that seems kind of rude to do at a burrito place.

So…what does the above section of Mayan glyphs actually say? Dr. Zender translated the glyph blocks from Chipotle:

u-K’AM-ma-K’AJAN?-ch’o-ko
uk’amk’ajan ch’ok
“the youth’s rope-taking” (a ceremony)

u-TZ’AK-AJ
utz’akaj
“its count” (calendric information)

WAX-YAX-SIHOOM-ma
“6 Yax” (part of a date)

chu-lu-ku-?
Chuluk … (pre-accession name of the king)

i-K’A’-yi
i k’a’ayi
“his … stopped” (a death verb, here referring to the king’s father)

TIWOL?-4-ma-ta
Tiwohl Chan Mat (the father of the king)

mu-ka-ja
muhkaj “he was buried” (again referring to the father)

u?-na-ta-la
u naahtal “the first”? (ordinal title?)

MO’-na-bi
… Mo’ Nahb (part of the name of the king)

Brings back memories of my college study of Classical Aztec (Nahuatl) in Chicago…

By Language Jones via Slate for the full awesome story and more photos of the art.