MAAYA: Multimedia Analysis and Access for Documentation and Decipherment of Maya Epigraphy

MAAYA项目的重点是研究玛雅文字和图像，并开发新的基于机器的方法和方法，用于半自动识别视觉元素，并发现玛雅文字和图像中有意义的模式，这些模式被传统的手动和浏览分析所忽视或需要相当多的时间。该项目将开发这些自动化方法（“机器视觉”），并在玛雅抄本和尤卡坦半岛铭文的基础上对其进行测试。该系统被设置为通过创建一个大型脚本和图像数据库来比较脚本段落和视觉元素，并研究记录在不同媒体上的数据集（即抄本与纪念碑铭文数据集）之间的文本和图像之间的复杂关系和相互作用。该数据库将为检测图像、视觉特征（颜色、形状、符号群）和象形文字符号之间的关联奠定基础。该数据库需要生成高质量的矢量可视化，支持可视化数据检索和文本挖掘搜索引擎。在这样做的过程中，我们的项目还试图缓解长期存在的研究差距，有关文件和分析古代尤卡坦半岛的文字记录，这已经收到了相当少的学术关注比他们的同行在中部和南部的玛雅低地。这些文本的分析将使我们能够确定原产地的树木codices。此外，我们将能够追溯玛雅文字在尤卡坦半岛从古典时期到西班牙征服的历时发展。

The MAAYA Project focuses on investigating Maya writing and iconography and developing new Machine-based methods and approaches for semi-automatic recognition of visual elements and discovery of meaningful patterns within Maya writing and iconography which have been overlooked or require considerable more time by more traditional manual- and browsing based analyses. The project will develop these automated methods ("Machine vision") and test them on the base of the Maya codices and inscriptions from Yucatan. The system is set to compare script passages and visual elements and to study complex relationships and interplay between text and image across datasets recorded on different media (i.e. codices vs. monumental inscription datasets) by means of creating a large script- and iconography database. This database will lay the ground for the detection of associations between images, visual features (colours, shapes, clusters of symbols) and hieroglyphic signs. The database requires production of high-quality vectorial visualizations supporting visual data retrieval- and text mining search engines. In doing so, our project also seeks to palliate long-standing research gaps concerning documentation and analyses of ancient Yucatan textual records, which have received considerable less scholarly attention than their counterparts in the central and southern Maya lowlands. The analysis of these texts will enable us to determine the places of origin of the tree codices. Furthermore, we will be able to trace the diachronic development of Maya writing in the Yucatan peninsula from the Classic period until the Spanish Conquest.