El Yuri Knorosov’s Decipherment of the Maya Writing in the Mexican Press of the 1950s

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the presentation of Yuri Knorosov’s decipherment of the Mayan hieroglyphic writing in Mexican press in the 1950s. We analyzed materials from newspapers such as “El Nacional”, “El Universal”, “Excelsior”, “El Informador” etc. from 1952 to 1957. Mexican journalists and experts whom they consulted expressed both favorable and critical opinions. The active discussion in the Mexican press contributed to the dissemination of knowledge about Mayan culture and to the creation of a new vision of the Soviet Union as a modernized country, a society of science and technology.