Isthmian (Epi-Olmec) Script and La Mojarra Stela 1

Anonymous / Isthmian-Epi-Olmec scribes and rulers of the southern Veracruz isthmus · AD 143 and AD 156 (Long Count dates carved on the monument) · La Mojarra (Mexico) · history

composition: secure

witness: the stela itself, recovered from the bed of the Acula River in 1986

Contested decipherment: La Mojarra Stela 1, carved in the Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script and bearing two Long Count dates conventionally correlated to AD 143 and 156, records what a proposed decipherment by John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman reads as a first-person narrative of a ruler's accession, warfare, and celestial observances; the decipherment remains disputed, with critics arguing that several of its phonetic sign values are unconfirmed and that too few independent Isthmian texts survive to test the reading against itself.