Yanelli Zavina Robles / The SWC Sun
RAIDER OF THE LOST LANGUAGES—Dr. Mark Van Stone created the Mayan hieroglyphs that adorn the public face of the campus.
By Luis Zavala
Hollywood could have a blockbuster with the life story of Dr. Mark Van Stone.
The unassuming art professor hunts antiquities in dangerous locations like Indiana Jones, explains mysterious symbols like Dr. Robert Langdon in “The Da Vinci Code,” translates exotic languages ala Dr. Louise Banks in the sci-fi classic “Arrival” and conjures masterpieces in unorthodox places like Michelangelo in “The Agony and the Ecstasy.”
He also created the public face of Southwestern College in the hieroglyphs of an endangered language.
“We have lots of people on campus that are really amazing at what they do, but I don’t think there’s anyone on campus more amazing than Dr. Mark Van Stone,” said Professor of Archeology Dr. Erin Browder. “He is internationally known is his field and remarkably talented.”
Professor of Mexican-American Studies Dr. Gerardo Rios, himself a well-regarded intellectual, said Van Stone is a “marvelous teacher, a great colleague and a genuinely nice guy.”
“Southwestern College is very fortunate to have a scholar of the stature of Dr. Van Stone,” said Rios. “He has given so much to our students. Dr. Van Stone is an eminent scholar, but he is an eminent scholar with a heart. He actually cares about the community and connects with students. He is concerned about their well-being.”
Van Stone loves to write, though most people would probably need help reading what he says despite his impeccable penmanship and talent for calligraphy. Few folks can read Mayan hieroglyphics, ancient Egyptian, 8th century Irish, 12th century Italian, ancient Greek or 10th century English. Writing is important, he said, but so is the way language is written.
“Ancient words and symbols were an expression of their culture,” he said. “The way a society writes and draws, and where they did it, is an expression of their self-worth and their values.”
Nothing quite says “big thinker” like chiseling bold hieroglyphs into the walls of public buildings, centers of power and pyramids, Van Stone said.
“Hieroglyphs have a real special power,” he explained. “When you see them, you love them. When you go to Egypt you see them all over the buildings. You may not have any idea what they say, but you cannot help but to be impressed. I discovered that the Maya created hieroglyphs too, but their writing is more mysterious.”
Egyptians and Maya shared a genius in their communication, Van Stone said. They had the ability to communicate without words that required reading and decoding. Hieroglyphs carved in stone, he said, convey a permanence and power that indicate something important has been etched here.
Van Stone himself had an epiphany and a “sign from the heavens” when he first walked on the campus of Southwestern College in 2002. There, in all its glory, was the former Student Center with an enormous etched glass frontage with a Mayan hieroglyph employees called “the ball marker.” It was love at first sight.
“When I saw that beautiful huge window art I knew I wanted to teach here,” he said in a voice that still carries a tinge of the wonder he experienced that day. “I knew that this college valued something I love.”
Van Stone immediately became the essential professor for art history and archeology students of the San Diego County-Tijuana region. Students flocked to his classes where he taught them how to speak and write in Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Babylonian, Egyptian and Maya. Students still get a kick out of the ability to write their name in a number of once-exotic languages.
They also get to meet and study with preeminent scholars Van Stone lures to campus like the legendary archeologist Michael Coe, with whom Van Stone co-authored the consequential book “Reading the Maya Glyph.” Van Stone has also brought Ivy League scholars to Southwestern College for presentations and guest lectures, including talks about recent pyramid excavations in Meso-America.
During the run up to the paranoid prognostication of the world’s end in 2012, Van Stone traveled the world rebutting the so-called “Mayan Prophecy” supposedly predicted by a Mayan calendar dug up by a construction crew many years ago in the Yucatan. Problem was, he pointed out, the calendar was broken and had an important piece missing. A complete calendar would have shown the Mayan belief that the world never ends and existence is timeless.
“Luckily I was right that time,” he said with an attempt at a straight face.
FACE OF THE COLLEGE
It can be argued that no employee in the 65-year history of Southwestern College has had a more profound impact on the appearance and physical culture of the campus than Van Stone. He designed the enormous Mayan hieroglyphs wrapped around the library, performing arts center and gymnasium/aquatic center compound. Images on the front of the library say “House of the God of Learning.”
Southwestern’s library also features a prodigious overhead sundial at Van Stone’s suggestion.
“We incorporated the sundial into the building design as both an historical reference to the Maya culture’s use of the sun to measure time and as a contemporary reference to a student’s journey at Southwestern College as they complete their educations measured in hours, days and seasons,” he said.
Towering, glowing four-story Mayan hieroglyphs on the gymnasium building at the corner of Otay Lakes Road and East H Street translate to “First Health Place,” giving the edifice an illuminated ancient blessing as a center for health and healing through exercise. A lamp post in front of the athletics area features the Mayan inscription “House of Fields,” a reference to sprawling Mayan athletic areas.
Southwestern’s acclaimed Performing Arts Center features a sun embraced by a larger sun and is the only building to feature a complete Mayan sentence. It designates the PAC as the Great House of Theater, Music and Dance – all art forms in which the Maya excel. Van Stone also spells out a Mayan translation for the College of the Southwestern.
THE ZERO HERO
Prominent on the Math and Science Building is an 8-foot high Mayan zero to commemorate the genius of the round, unending symbol for the absence of value and the invaluable placeholder that makes complex mathematical thinking possible.
“The Mayan zero appeared in about 200 AD and in India at about the same time,” Van Stone said. “It was a revolutionary idea that allows you to count in a way you can’t when you use letters like the ancient Romans. When you use letters you run out of ways to write larger numbers. Mayan numbers allow you to count to infinity thanks to the zero.”
Southwestern College has a collection of hieroglyphs unique to the planet Earth, said Van Stone.
“There is no school, no building anywhere in the world with this many hieroglyphs,” he said. “The actual original Mayans had the largest collections, but those inscriptions where mostly taken down and are now largely in museums.”
Preternaturally humble, Van Stone confessed pride in his work.
“Am I proud of (the hieroglyphs)?” he responded. “Yeah, you bet. This is my legacy. Maybe I should make sure they put up a sign before I retire so that people will not forget me.”
He laughed at the thought and pondered his mortality. Hieroglyphs famously outlive their creators by such enormous stretches of time that the visionary minds and talented hands of the Ancient Ones fade into the sands of antiquity. Van Stone said he is much more concerned with the here and now.
“I teach art to make people more tolerant and to bring peace to the world,” he said. “The more you know about other people’s art and culture, the less capacity you have to hate them and the more you relate to them. That is powerful in any language.”
