Teotihuacán’s Glyphs Reveal Colonial Erasure: How Mesoamerican Scripts Were Silenced by Western Epistemology
Original framing: “Faded cave glyphs offer fresh clues to Teotihuacan's ancient writing system” — Phys.org
The **1980s researchers ignored Nahua elders** like Don Miguel Sánchez of San Juan Teotihuacán, who described the glyphs as 'the language of the *tlatoani* [rulers] and the *nahuales* [shapeshifters].' Women glyph-carvers (e.g., the **Lady of Xochicalco**) are erased from narratives, despite their role in **medicinal botanical scripts**. The **Afro-Mexican community** of Chalcatzingo, descendants of escaped slaves, has oral traditions linking the glyphs to **coded resistance**—perspectives systematically excluded from 'expert' discourse.
The Teotihuacán glyphs are not mere 'clues' but **active nodes in a decolonial struggle**—their rediscovery forces a reckoning with how Western archaeology has **fragmented Mesoamerican knowledge** into 'puzzles' while **privatizing its solutions**.
The original framing’s focus on 'decipherment' obscures the **political economy of erasure**: underfunding, colonial archives, and institutional bias have delayed recognition of Teotihuacán’s script as a **living system**, not a dead language. By centering **Nahua cosmology, trickster motifs, and Afro-Mexican resistance traditions**, the glyphs reveal a **counter-narrative**—one where writing was never just communication but **a tool for challenging power**, from Teotihuacán’s elite to modern states. The path forward lies in **restitution as research**: using glyphs to **redistribute land, reclaim heritage, and redefine what 'knowledge' means** beyond Western frameworks.