Basic procedure: Enter one or more search terms in the "Keywords" field above. Note that if you enter more than one term, the search engine will find all documents and captions that contain the first term or the second term or the third term, etc. If, in addition to entering one or more terms in the Keywords field, you enter one or more terms in the AND field, the search engine will find only those records that include one or more of the terms in the Keywords field and all of the terms in the AND field. If you enter one or more search terms in the AND NOT field, the search engine will find only those records that include one or more of the terms in the Keywords field and all of the terms (if any) in the AND field but none of the terms in the AND NOT field.

For example: If you were to enter "Tikal Stela 31" in the Keywords field, the search engine would return all articles or captions that contain either the word "Tikal", or the word "Stela", or the number "31". If, however, you wished to see only those records that contain all three of those keywords you would enter "Tikal" in the Keywords field and "Stela 31" in the AND field.

With a checkmark in the "Exact Match" box, searching "Tikal Stela 31" will find that exact phrase. But searching with "Tikal" in the Keywords line and "Stela 31" in the AND line with a checkmark in the Exact Match box has the advantage of finding all records containing the phrases "Tikal, Stela 31", "Stela 31, Tikal", "Stela 31 of Tikal", etc.

Keywords in the AND NOT line are treated individually (rather than together as a phrase) even with a checkmark in the Exact Match box.

Capitalization is disregarded by the search feature. Searching "tikal" finds all instances of "Tikal".

A note to power searchers: If you go to a page that says to use your browser's find feature to locate text, don't forget that there could be more than one instance of what you are looking for. And of course this is also true when you come across big documents that don't mention your browser's find feature. So you might want to make use of the "View all keywords" link while you are still in Mesoweb Site Search. The functional elipses (three dots) at the ends of the text excerpts also operate in the "View all keywords" window.

Frequently asked question: Why isn't this a simple, one-line interface like Google? With the entire World Wide Web to choose from, the brilliant Google software is able to return you something meaningful for just about every query by treating your keywords as both AND and OR propositions with various combinations of Exact Match. However, a given document that actually contains a definitive discussion of what you are searching for might be item #200 out of 250.

Accents: The user does not have to type the accents for Spanish or other international words but may if so desired. Inputting "Yaxchilan" finds all instances of "Yaxchilán" as well as "Yaxchilan". Inputting "Yaxchilán" also finds all instances with or without the accent.

Apostrophes: In Mayan languages, letters marked with an apostrophe are distinct from the unmarked forms (the initial consonant in k'an "precious" is pronounced with a glottal sound while that in kan "four" is not). But for the user's convenience (and because of inconsistencies in the literature over the years), the search engine disregards this distinction: Typing "kan" finds all instances of "k'an", and typing "k'an" finds both "k'an" and "kan". Apostrophes are also disregarded in alphabetization.