Intro by Laura Lee
Author of "The Hidden Maya" and "Stones of Time" has cracked the code of a few ancient writing systems: Mayan glyphs and 5,000 year old Irish petroglyphs. Brennan shows how the hand gestures in Maya artwork can be deciphered, an insight inspired by his research into the handsigns of the Plains Indians. And at Ireland’s Newgrange, (which predates Stonehenge by 1000 years) the wheels, spirals, and zigzags on the ancient stone chambers, sundials, he says, are solar and lunar timekeeping symbols within sophisticated calendrical devices. This may be the earliest methods of recording numbers, and the beginning of writing. Brennan trained in visual communication at Pratt University.

About the Author
Martin Brennan trained in visual communication at Pratt Institute.  He has travelled extensively in Mexico where his interests in prehistoric rock inscriptions, ritual, and traditional art developed.  Spending more than a decade in Ireland engaged in active research on megalithic art, he tapped into some of the earliest methods of recording numbers and the fundamental beginnings of writing, and reported these startling discoveries in his critically acclaimed The Stars and The Stones, later reissued as The Stones of Time.  He lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado.

More information on this guest or topic?