Maya script 1

Maya script
Maya script
Type Mixed Logographic and Syllabic (used both logograms and syllabic characters)

Languages Mayan languages

Time period 3rd century BCE to present

ISO 15924 Maya, 090

Maya civilization
• People
• Society
• Languages
• Writing
• Religion
• Mythology
• Sacrifice
• Cities
• Architecture
• Calendar
• Stelae
• Art
• Textiles
• Trade
• Music
• Dance
• Medicine
• Cuisine
History

Preclassic Maya

Classic Maya collapse

Spanish conquest of Yucatán

Spanish conquest of Guatemala

Spanish conquest of Petén

• v
• t
• e [1]
Maya script 2

The Mayan script, also known as Mayan glyphs or Mayan hieroglyphs, is the
writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only
Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest
inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San
Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica
until shortly after the arrival of the conquistadors in the 16th century CE and into the
18th century in isolated areas, such as Tayasal.

Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat

similar in function to modern Japanese writing. Mayan writing was called
"hieroglyphics" or hieroglyphs by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th
centuries who did not understand it but found its general appearance reminiscent of
Egyptian hieroglyphs, to which the Mayan writing system is not at all related.
Although modern Mayan languages use the Latin alphabet as standard, Mayan writing
has received official support and promotion by the Mexican government and is taught
in universities and public schools in several Mayan speaking areas.Wikipedia:Citation
needed

Languages
It is now thought that the codices and other Classic texts were written by scribes,
usually members of the Maya priesthood, in a literary form of the Ch’olti’ language
(known as Classic Maya).[2] It is possible that the Maya elite spoke this language as a
lingua franca over the entire Maya-speaking area, but also that texts were written in An inscription in Maya glyphs
from the site of Naranjo,
other Mayan languages of the Petén and Yucatán, especially Yucatec. There is also
relating to the reign of king
some evidence that the script may have been occasionally used to write Mayan Itzamnaaj K'awil, 784-810
languages of the Guatemalan Highlands. However, if other languages were written,
they may have been written by Ch’olti’ scribes, and therefore have Ch’olti’ elements.

Structure
Mayan writing consisted of a relatively elaborate set of glyphs, which were laboriously painted on ceramics, walls or
bark-paper codices, carved in wood or stone, or molded in stucco. Carved and molded glyphs were painted, but the
paint has rarely survived. About 90% of Mayan writing can now be read with varying degrees of certainty, enough to
give a comprehensive idea of its structure.[3]
The Mayan script was a logosyllabic system. Individual symbols ("glyphs") could represent either a word (actually a
morpheme) or a syllable; indeed, the same glyph could often be used for both. For example, the calendaric glyph
MANIK’ was also used to represent the syllable chi. (It is customary to write logographic readings in all capitals and
phonetic readings in italics.) It is possible, but not certain, that these conflicting readings arose as the script was
adapted to new languages, as also happened with Japanese kanji and with Assyro-Babylonian and Hittite cuneiform.
There was ambiguity in the other direction as well: Different glyphs could be read the same way. For example, half a
dozen apparently unrelated glyphs were used to write the very common third person pronoun u-.
Mayan was usually written in blocks arranged in columns two blocks wide, read as follows:
Maya script 3

Within each block, glyphs were arranged top-to-bottom and

left-to-right, superficially rather like Korean Hangul syllabic blocks.
However, in the case of Mayan, each block tended to correspond to a
noun or verb phrase such as his green headband. Also, glyphs were
sometimes conflated, where an element of one glyph would replace
part of a second. Conflation occurs in other scripts: For example, in
medieval Spanish manuscripts the word de 'of' was sometimes written
Ð (a D with the arm of an E). Another example is the ampersand (&)
Maya inscriptions were most often written in which is a conflation of the Latin "et". In place of the standard block
columns two glyphs wide, with each such column configuration Mayan was also sometimes written in a single row or
read left to right, top to bottom
column, 'L', or 'T' shapes. These variations most often appeared when
they would better fit the surface being inscribed.

Mayan glyphs were fundamentally logographic. Generally the glyphs used as phonetic elements were originally
logograms that stood for words that were themselves single syllables, syllables that either ended in a vowel or in a
weak consonant such as y, w, h, or glottal stop. For example, the logogram for 'fish fin' (Maya [kah] — found in two
forms, as a fish fin and as a fish with prominent fins), came to represent the syllable ka. These syllabic glyphs
performed two primary functions: they were used as phonetic complements to disambiguate logograms which had
more than one reading, as also occurred in Egyptian and in modern Japanese (i.e. furigana); and they were used to
write grammatical elements such as verbal inflections which did not have dedicated logograms, also as in modern
Japanese (i.e. okurigana). For example, bahlam 'jaguar' could be written as a single logogram, BALAM,
complemented phonetically as ba-BALAM, or BALAM-ma, or ba-BALAM-ma, or written completely phonetically as
ba-la-ma.

Harmonic and disharmonic echo vowels

Phonetic glyphs stood for simple consonant-vowel or bare-vowel syllables. However, Mayan phonotactics is slightly
more complicated than this: Most Mayan words end in a consonant, not a vowel, and there may be sequences of two
consonants within a word as well, as in xolte’ [ʃolteʔ] 'scepter', which is CVCCVC. When these final consonants
were sonorants (l, m, n) or gutturals (j, h, ’) they were sometimes ignored ("underspelled"), but more often final
consonants were written, which meant that an extra vowel was written as well. This was typically an "echo" vowel
that repeated the vowel of the previous syllable. That is, the word [kah] 'fish fin' would be underspelled ka or written
in full as ka-ha. However, there are many cases where some other vowel was used, and the orthographic rules for
this are only partially understood; this is largely due to the difficulty in ascertaining whether this vowel may be due
to an underspelled suffix. Lacadena and Wichmann (2004) proposed the following conventions:
• A CVC syllable was written CV-CV, where the two vowels (V) were the same: yo-po [yop] 'leaf'
• A syllable with a long vowel (CVVC) was written CV-Ci, unless the long vowel was [i], in which case it was
written CiCa: ba-ki [baak] 'captive', yi-tzi-na [yihtziin] 'younger brother'
• A syllable with a glottalized vowel (CV’C or CV’VC) was written with a final a if the vowel was [e, o, u], or with
a final u if the vowel was [a] or [i]: hu-na [hu’n] 'paper', ba-tz’u [ba’tz’] 'howler monkey'.
• Preconsonantal [h] is not indicated.
That is, a simple vowel is intended if the vowels are the same (harmonic), and either two syllables are intended
(likely underspelled) if the vowels are not the same (disharmonic), or else a single syllable with a long vowel (if V1 =
[a e? o u] and V2 = [i], or else if V1 = [i] and V2 = [a]) or with a glottalized vowel (if V1 = [e? o u] and V2 = [a], or
else if V1 = [a i] and V2 = [u]). The long-vowel reading of [Ce-Ci] is still uncertain, and there is a possibility that
[Ce-Cu] represents a glottalized vowel (if it is not simply an underspelling for [CeCuC]), so it may be that the
disharmonies form natural classes: [i] for long non-front vowels, otherwise [a] to keep it disharmonic; [u] for
glottalized non-back vowels, otherwise [a].
Maya script 4

A more complex spelling is ha-o-bo ko-ko-no-ma for [ha’o’b kohkno’m] 'they are the guardians'. (Vowel length and
glottalization are not always indicated in common words like 'they are'.) A minimal set is,
ba-ka [bak]
ba-ki [baak]
ba-ku [ba’k] = [ba’ak]
ba-ke [baakel] (underspelled)
ba-ke-le [baakel]

Verbal inflections
Despite depending on consonants which were frequently not written, the Mayan voice system was reliably indicated.
For instance, the paradigm for a transitive verb with a CVC root is as follows:

Voice Transliteration Transcription Gloss

Active u-TZUTZ-wa utzutzu’w "s/he finished it"

Passive TZUTZ-tza-ja tzu〈h〉tzaj "it was finished"

Mediopassive TZUTZ-yi tzutzuuy "it got finished"

Antipassive TZUTZ-wi tzutzuuw "s/he finished"

Participial TZUTZ-li tzutzuul "finished"

The active suffix did not participate in the harmonic/disharmonic system seen in roots, but rather was always -wa.
However, the language changed over 1500 years, and there were dialectical differences as well, which are reflected
in the script, as seen next for the verb "s/he sat" (〈h〉 is an infix in the root chum for the passive voice):

Period Transliteration Transcription

Late Preclassic CHUM? chu〈h〉m?

Early Classic CHUM-ja chu〈h〉m-aj

Classic (Eastern Ch'olan) CHUM-mu-la-ja chum-l-aj

Late Classic (Western Ch'olan) CHUM-mu-wa-ni chum-waan

Emblem glyphs
An "emblem glyph" is a kind of royal title. It consists of a word
ajaw—a Classic Maya term for "lord" of yet unclear etymology but
well-attested in Colonial sources[4]—and a place name that precedes
the word ajaw and functions as an adjective. An expression "Boston
lord" would be a perfect English analogy. Sometimes, the title is
introduced by an adjective k’uhul ("holy, divine" or "sacred"), just as if
someone wanted to say "holy Boston lord". Of course, an "emblem
glyph" is not a "glyph" at all: it can be spelled with any number of
syllabic or logographic signs and several alternative spellings are
attested for the words k’uhul and ajaw, which form the stable core of
the title. The term "emblem glyph" simply reflects the times when
Tikal or "Mutal" Emblem Glyph, Stela 26 in
Tikal's Litoteca Museum
mayanists could not read Classic Maya inscriptions and had to come up
Maya script 5

with some nicknames isolating certain recurrent structural components of the written narratives.
This title was identified in 1958 by Heinrich Berlin,[5] who coined the term "emblem glyph". Berlin noticed that the
"emblem glyphs" consisted of a larger "main sign" and two smaller signs now read as k’uhul ajaw. Berlin also
noticed that while the smaller elements remained relatively constant, the main sign changed from site to site. Berlin
proposed that the main signs identified individual cities, their ruling dynasties, or the territories they controlled.
Subsequently, Marcus[6] argued that the "emblem glyphs" referred to archaeological sites, broken down in a 5-tiered
hierarchy of asymmetrical distribution. Marcus' research assumed that the emblem glyphs were distributed in a
pattern of relative site importance depending on broadness of distribution, roughly broken down as follows: Primary
regional centers (capitals) (Tikal, Calakmul, and other "superpowers") were generally first in the region to acquire
a unique emblem glyph(s). Texts referring to other primary regional centers occur in the texts of these "capitals", and
dependencies exist which use the primary center's glyph. Secondary centers (Altun Ha, Luubantuun, Xunantunich,
and other mid-sized cities had their own glyphs but are only rarely mentioned in texts found in the primary regional
center, while repeatedly mentioning the regional center in their own texts. Tertiary centers (towns) had no glyphs of
their own, but have texts mentioning the primary regional centers and perhaps secondary regional centers on
occasion. These were followed by the villages with no emblem glyphs and no texts mentioning the larger centers,
and hamlets with little evidence of texts at all.[7] This model was largely unchallenged for over a decade until
Mathews and Justeson,[8] as well as Houston[9] argued once again that the "emblem glyphs" were the titles of Maya
rulers with some geographical association.
The debate on the nature of "emblem glyphs" received a new spin with the monograph by Stuart and Houston.[10]
The authors convincingly demonstrated that there were lots of place names-proper, some real, some mythological,
mentioned in the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Some of these place names also appeared in the "emblem glyphs", some
were attested in the "titles of origin" (various expressions like "a person from Boston"), but some were not
incorporated in personal titles at all. Moreover, the authors also highlighted the cases when the "titles of origin" and
the "emblem glyphs" did not overlap, building upon an earlier research by Houston.[11] Houston noticed that the
establishment and spread of the Tikal-originated dynasty in the Petexbatun region was accompanied by the
proliferation of rulers using the Tikal "emblem glyph" placing political and dynastic ascendancy above the current
seats of rulership.[12] Recent investigations also emphasize the use of emblem glyphs as an emic identifier to shape
socio-political self-identity.[13]

Numerical system
Main article: Maya numerals
The Mayas used a positional
base-twenty (vigesimal) numerical
system which only included whole
List of Maya numerals from 0 to 19 with underneath two vertically oriented examples
numbers. For simple counting
operations, a bar and dot notation was
used. The dot represents 1 and the bar represents 5. A shell was used to represent zero. Numbers from 6 to 19 are
formed combining bars and dots. Numbers can be written horizontally or vertically.
Maya script 6

The value of a number depends on its

position going from the bottom line upward
in the configuration. The initial position (viz
bottom line) has the value represented in the
symbol. On the following line, the value of
the symbol is multiplied by 20; on the third
line from the bottom it's multiplied by 400,
and each successive line is growing by
powers of 20. That is to say, Mayan
numerals use base 20. This positional
system allows the calculation of large
figures, necessary for chronology and
astronomy.[14]

These four examples show how the value of Maya numerals can be calculated
History
It was until recently thought that the Maya may have adopted writing from the Olmec or Epi-Olmec culture, who
used the Isthmian script. However, murals excavated in 2005 have pushed back the origin of Maya writing by
several centuries, and it now seems possible that the Maya were the ones who invented writing in Mesoamerica.
Regardless, it is generally believed that the Maya developed the only complete writing system in Mesoamerica,
meaning that they were the only civilization that could write everything they could say.
Knowledge of the Maya writing system continued into the early colonial era and reportedly a few of the early
Spanish priests who went to Yucatán learned it. However, as part of his campaign to eradicate pagan rites, Bishop
Diego de Landa ordered the collection and destruction of written Maya works, and a sizable number of Maya codices
were destroyed. Later, seeking to use their native language to convert the Maya to Christianity, he derived what he
believed to be a Maya "alphabet" (the so-called de Landa alphabet). Although the Maya did not actually write
alphabetically, nevertheless he recorded a glossary of Maya sounds and related symbols, which was long dismissed
as nonsense but eventually became a key resource in deciphering the Maya script, though it has itself not been
completely deciphered. The difficulty was that there was no simple correspondence between the two systems, and
the names of the letters of the Spanish alphabet meant nothing to Landa's Maya scribe, so Landa ended up asking the
equivalent of write H: a-i-tee-cee-aitch "aitch", and glossed a part of the result as "H".
Landa was also involved in creating a Latin orthography for the Yukatek Maya language, meaning that he created a
system for writing Yukatek in the Latin alphabet. This was the first Latin orthography for any of the Mayan
languages,Wikipedia:Citation needed which number around thirty.
Only four Maya codices are known to have survived the conquistadors. Most surviving texts are found on pottery
recovered from Maya tombs, or from monuments and stelae erected in sites which were abandoned or buried before
the arrival of the Spanish.
Knowledge of the writing system was lost, probably by the end of the 16th century. Renewed interest in it was
sparked by published accounts of ruined Maya sites in the 19th century.
Maya script 7

Decipherment
The decipherment of the writing was a long and laborious process.
19th century and early 20th century investigators managed to decode
the Maya numbers and portions of the texts related to astronomy and
the Maya calendar, but understanding of most of the rest long eluded
scholars. In the 1930s, Benjamin Whorf wrote a number of published
and unpublished essays, proposing to identify phonetic elements within
the writing system. Although some specifics of his decipherment
claims were later shown to be incorrect, the central argument of his
Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in work, that Maya hieroglyphs were phonetic (or more specifically,
Palenque, Mexico syllabic), was later supported by the work of Yuri Knorozov, who
played a major role in deciphering Maya writing.[15] In 1952,
Knorozov published the paper "Ancient Writing of Central America" arguing that the so-called "de Landa alphabet"
contained in Bishop Diego de Landa's manuscript Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán was actually made of syllabic,
rather than alphabetic symbols. He further improved his decipherment technique in his 1963 monograph "The
Writing of the Maya Indians"[16] and published translations of Maya manuscripts in his 1975 work "Maya
Hieroglyphic Manuscripts". In the 1960s, progress revealed the dynastic records of Maya rulers. Since the early
1980s it has been demonstrated that most of the previously unknown symbols form a syllabary, and progress in
reading the Maya writing has advanced rapidly since.

As Knorozov's early essays contained several older readings already published in the late 19th century by Cyrus
Thomas,[17] and the Soviet editors added propagandistic claims[18] to the effect that Knorozov was using a peculiarly
"Marxist-Leninist" approach to decipherment, many Western Mayanists simply dismissed Knorozov's work.
However, in the 1960s more came to see the syllabic approach as potentially fruitful, and possible phonetic readings
for symbols whose general meaning was understood from context began to be developed. Prominent older
epigrapher J. Eric S. Thompson was one of the last major opponents of Knorozov and the syllabic approach.
Thompson's disagreements are sometimes said to have held back advances in decipherment.[19] For example, Coe
(1992) says[20] "the major reason was that almost the entire Mayanist field was in willing thrall to one very dominant
scholar, Eric Thompson".
In 1959, examining what she called "a peculiar pattern of dates" on stone monument inscriptions at the Classic Maya
site of Piedras Negras, Russian-American scholar Tatiana Proskouriakoff determined that these represented events in
the lifespan of an individual, rather than relating to religion, astronomy, or prophecy, as held by the "old school"
exemplified by Thompson. This proved to be true of many Maya inscriptions, and revealed the Maya epigraphic
record to be one relating actual histories of ruling individuals: dynastic histories similar in nature to those recorded in
literate human cultures throughout the world. Suddenly, the Maya entered written history.[21]
Although it was now clear what was on many Maya inscriptions, they still could not literally be read. However,
further progress was made during the 1960s and 1970s, using a multitude of approaches including pattern analysis,
de Landa's "alphabet", Knorozov's breakthroughs, and others. In the story of Maya decipherment, the work of
archaeologists, art historians, epigraphers, linguists, and anthropologists cannot be separated. All contributed to a
process that was truly and essentially multidisciplinary. Key figures included David Kelley, Ian Graham, Gilette
Griffin, and Michael Coe.
Dramatic breakthroughs occurred in the 1970s, in particular at the first Mesa Redonda de Palenque, a scholarly
conference organized by Merle Greene Robertson at the Classic Maya site of Palenque held in December, 1973. A
working group was led by Linda Schele, an art historian and epigrapher at the University of Texas at Austin, which
included Floyd Lounsbury, a linguist from Yale, and Peter Mathews, then an undergraduate student of David
Kelley's at the University of Calgary (whom Kelley sent because he could not attend). In one afternoon they
Maya script 8

managed to decipher the first dynastic list of Maya kings, the ancient kings of the city of Palenque. By identifying a
sign as an important royal title (now read as the recurring name K'inich), the group was able to identify and "read"
the life histories (from birth, to accession to the throne, to death) of six kings of Palenque.
From that point, progress proceeded at an exponential pace, not only in the decipherment of the Maya glyphs, but
also towards the construction of a new, historically based understanding of Maya civilization. Scholars such as J.
Kathryn Josserand, Nick Hopkins and others published findings that helped to construct a Mayan vocabulary.[22] In
1988, Wolfgang Gockel published a translation of the Palenque inscriptions based on a morphemic rather than
syllabic interpretation of the glyphs. The "old school" continued to resist the results of the new scholarship for some
time. A decisive event which helped to turn the tide in favor of the new approach occurred in 1986, at an exhibition
entitled "The Blood of Kings: A New Interpretation of Maya Art". It was organized by InterCultura and the Kimbell
Art Museum and curated by Schele and Yale art historian Mary Miller. This exhibition and attendant catalogue—and
international publicity—revealed to a wide audience the new world which had latterly been opened up by progress in
decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics. Not only could a real history of ancient America now be read and understood,
but the light it shed on the material remains of the Maya showed them to be real, recognisable individuals. They
stood revealed as a people with a history like that of all other human societies: full of wars, dynastic struggles,
shifting political alliances, complex religious and artistic systems, expressions of personal property and ownership
and the like. Moreover, the new interpretation, as the exhibition demonstrated, made sense out of many works of art
whose meaning had been unclear and showed how the material culture of the Maya represented a fully integrated
cultural system and world view. Gone was the old Thompson view of the Maya as peaceable astronomers without
conflict or other attributes characteristic of most human societies.
However, three years later in 1989, a final counter-assault was launched by supporters who were still resisting the
modern decipherment interpretation. This occurred at a conference at Dumbarton Oaks. It did not directly attack the
methodology or results of decipherment, but instead contended that the ancient Maya texts had indeed been read but
were "epiphenomenal". This argument was extended from a populist perspective to say that the deciphered texts tell
us only about the concerns and beliefs of the society's elite, and not about the ordinary Maya. Michael Coe in
opposition to this idea described "epiphenomenal" as "a ten penny word meaning that Maya writing is only of
marginal application since it is secondary to those more primary institutions—economics and society—so well
studied by the dirt archaeologists."[23]
Linda Schele noted following the conference that this is like saying that the inscriptions of ancient Egypt—or the
writings of Greek philosophers or historians—do not reveal anything important about their cultures. Most written
documents in most cultures tell us about the elite, because in most cultures in the past, they were the ones who could
write (or could have things written down by scribes or inscribed on monuments).
Progress in decipherment continues at a rapid pace today, and it is generally agreed by scholars that over 90 percent
of the Maya texts can now be read with reasonable accuracy.Wikipedia:Attribution needed As of 2008[24], at least
one phonetic glyph was known (or had been proposed) for each of the syllables marked in this chart. Based on verbal
inflection patterns, it would seem that a syllabogram for [wu] did not exist rather than simply being unattested. No
syllable in [p’] is attested.[25]
Maya script 9

Syllables for which at least one phonetic glyph has been found
(’) b ch ch’ h j k k’ l m n p p’ s t t’ tz tz’ w x y

a Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

e Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

i Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

o Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

u Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes

Notes
[1] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Template:Maya_civilization& action=edit
[2] Kettunen and Helmke (2005, p.12)
[3] See here (http:/ / www. mesoweb. com/ resources/ handbook/ WH2008. pdf) for a more substantial discussion and, from page 70 on, a partial
list of glyphs and glyph blocks
[4] Lacadena García-Gallo, A. and A. Ciudad Ruiz (1998). Reflexiones sobre la estructura política maya clásica. Anatomía de una Civilización:
Aproximaciones Interdisciplinarias a la Cultura Maya. A. Cuidad Ruiz, M. I. Ponce de León and M. Martínez Martínez. Madrid, Sociedad
Española de Estudios Mayas: 31-64
[5] Berlin, H. (1958). "El Glifo Emblema en las inscripciones Maya." Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris 47: 111-119
[6] Marcus, J. (1976). Emblem and state in the classic Maya Lowlands: an epigraphic approach to territorial organization. Washington,
Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University
[7] Marcus, J. (1973) Territorial Organization of the Lowland Classic Maya. Science. 1973 June 1;180 (4089):pp. 911-916
[8] See Mathews (1991)
[9] Houston, S. D. (1986). Problematic emblem glyphs: examples from Altar de Sacrificios, El Chorro, Río Azul, and Xultun. Washington, D.C.,
Center for Maya Research
[10] Stuart, D. and S. D. Houston (1994). Classic Maya place names. Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
[11] Houston (1993; in particular, pp.97–101)
[12] Source: A.Tokovinine(2006) People from a place: re-interpreting Classic Maya "Emblem Glyphs". Paper presented at the 11th European
Maya Conference "Ecology, Power, and Religion in Maya Landscapes", Malmö University, Sweden, December 4–9, 2006
[13] S. Gronemeyer (2012) Maya Political Relations and Strategies. Proceedings of the 14th European Maya Conference, Cracow, 2009
[Contributions in New World Archaeology, 4], edited by Jarosław Źrałka, Wiesław Koszkul and Beata Golińska: 13-40. Cracow: Polska
Akademia Umiejętności and Uniwersytet Jagielloński
[14] Information panel in the Museo Regional de Antropología in Mérida (state of Yucatán), visited on 2010-08-04
[15] Yuri Knorozov (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9001728/ Yury-Valentinovich-Knorozov) at Britannica
[16] Yuri Knorozov (http:/ / mesoamerica. narod. ru/ knorozov. html)
[17] Coe, M. (1992), pp. 151
[18] Coe, M. (1992), pp. 147
[19] Coe, M. (1992), pp. 125-144
[20] Coe, M. (1992), pp. 164
[21] Coe, M. (1992), pp. 167-184
[22] Google Docs (https:/ / docs. google. com/ viewer?url=http:/ / www. nightfirefilms. org/ breakingthemayacode/ interviews/
JosserandHopkinsTRANSCRIPT. pdf)
[23] Coe, M. (1992), p. 268 (3rd ed)
[24] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Maya_script& action=edit
[25] Kettunen & Helmke (2008) pp 48–49
Maya script 10

Bibliography
• Coe, Michael D. (1992). Breaking the Maya Code. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05061-9.
• Coe, Michael D.; and Mark L Van Stone (2005). Reading the Maya Glyphs. London: Thames & Hudson.
ISBN 978-0-500-28553-4.
• Gronemeyer, Sven (2012). "Statements of Identity: Emblem Glyphs in the Nexus of Political Relations" (http://
www.academia.edu/2088991/Statements_of_Identity_Emblem_Glyphs_in_the_Nexus_of_Political_Relations).
In Jarosław Źrałka, Wiesław Koszkul and Beata Golińska (eds.). Maya Political Relations and Strategies.
Proceedings of the 14th European Maya Conference, Cracow, 2009. Contributions in New World Archaeology 4.
Cracow: Polska Akademia Umiejętności and Uniwersytet Jagielloński. pp. 13–40.
• Houston, Stephen D. (1986). Problematic Emblem Glyphs: Examples from Altar de Sacrificios, El Chorro, Rio
Azul, and Xultun (http://www.mesoweb.com/bearc/cmr/03.html) (PDF). Research Reports on Ancient Maya
Writing, 3. (Mesoweb online facsimile ed.). Washington D.C: Center for Maya Research. ASIN  B0006EOYNY
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006EOYNY).
• Houston, Stephen D. (1993). Hieroglyphs and History at Dos Pilas: Dynastic Politics of the Classic Maya.
Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-73855-2.
• Kettunen, Harri; and Christophe Helmke (2010). Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs (http://www.mesoweb.
com/resources/handbook/index.html) (PDF). Wayeb and Leiden University. Retrieved 2013-01-31.
• Lacadena García-Gallo, Alfonso; and Andrés Ciudad Ruiz (1998). "Reflexiones sobre la estructura política maya
clásica". In Andrés Ciudad Ruiz, Yolanda Fernández Marquínez, José Miguel García Campillo, Maria Josefa
Iglesias Ponce de León, Alfonso Lacadena García-Gallo, Luis T. Sanz Castro (eds.). Anatomía de una
Civilización: Aproximaciones Interdisciplinarias a la Cultura Maya. Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios
Mayas. ISBN 84-923545-0-X. (Spanish)
• Lebrun, David (2007). Breaking the Maya Code. Los Angeles: Nightfire Films. ASIN  B001B2U1BE (http://
www.amazon.com/dp/B001B2U1BE).
• Marcus, Joyce (1976). Emblem and State in the Classic Maya Lowlands: an Epigraphic Approach to Territorial
Organization. Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-88402-066-5.
• Mathews, Peter (1991). "Classic Maya emblem glyphs". In T. Patrick Culvert (ed.). Classic Maya Political
History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence. School of American Research Advanced Seminars.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–29. ISBN 0-521-39210-1.
• Montgomery, John (2002). Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs. New York: Hippocrene Books.
ISBN 978-0-7818-0862-0.
• Montgomery, John (2004). How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs (Hippocrene Practical Dictionaries). New York:
Hippocrene Books. ISBN 978-0-7818-1020-3.
• Saturno, William A.; David Stuart, and Boris Beltrán (3 March 2006). "Early Maya writing at San Bartolo,
Guatemala" (http://www.sanbartolo.org/science.pdf) (PDF Science Express republ.). Science 311 (5765):
1281–3. doi: 10.1126/science.1121745 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1121745). PMID  16400112 (http:/
/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16400112). Retrieved 2007-06-15.
• Schele, Linda; and David Freidel (1990). A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York:
William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-07456-1.
• Schele, Linda; and Mary Ellen Miller (1992) [1986]. Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. Justin Kerr
(photographer) (reprint ed.). New York: George Braziller. ISBN 0-8076-1278-2.
• Soustelle, Jacques (1984). The Olmecs: The Oldest Civilization in Mexico. New York: Doubleday and Co.
ISBN 0-385-17249-4.
• Stuart, David; and Stephen D. Houston (1994). Classic Maya Place Names. Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Art
and Archaeology Series, 33. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Harvard
University Press. ISBN 0-88402-209-9.
Maya script 11

• Tedlock, Dennis (2010). 2000 Years of Mayan Literature. California: University of California Press.
ISBN 978-0-520-23221-1.
• Van Stone, Mark L (2010). 2012: Science and Prophecy of the Ancient Maya. California: Tlacaelel Press.
ISBN 978-0-9826826-0-9.

External links
Media related to Maya writing at Wikimedia Commons
• Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs by Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke (http://www.mesoweb.com/
resources/handbook/index.html)
• A partial transcription, transliteration, and translation of the Temple of Inscriptions text by Michael D. Carrasco
(http://learningobjects.wesleyan.edu/palenque/glyphs/temple_inscriptions/)
• A Preliminary Classic Maya-English/English-Classic Maya Vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Readings by Eric Boot
(http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/vocabulary/Vocabulary.pdf)
• FAMSI resources on Maya Hieroglyphic writing (http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/)
• Maya Writing in: Guatemala, Cradle of the Maya Civilization (http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_writing.
htm)
• Mayaweb: Learn how to write your name in Maya Hieroglyphs (http://www.mayaweb.nl/)
• Nova online - 'Cracking the Maya Code' (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mayacode/)
• Wolfgang Gockel's morphemic interpretation of the glyphs (http://www.gockelmayatheory.com)
• Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard University (http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/24)
• Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volumes 1–9. Published by the Peabody Museum Press and
distributed by Harvard University Press (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/results-list.php?collection=1210)
• Talakh Viktor (2011-03-19). "Introduction to hieroglyphic script of the Maya. Manual" (http://bloknot.info/gfe/
view.php?file=Textos/Maya/
Talakh_Viktor_Introduction_to_hieroglyphic_script_of_the_Maya_manual_ukr_2010.pdf). www.bloknot.info.
Retrieved 2011-03-24.
Article Sources and Contributors 12

Article Sources and Contributors

Maya script  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=621626036  Contributors: A.Skromnitsky, Addshore, Ahkalmonab, Ahoerstemeier, Aikibum, Alarob, Alensha, Alexius08,
Allens, Alton.arts, Anam Gumnam, Anonymous editor, Anonymous44, Arjayay, Asteiner, Authenticmaya, Avicennasis, Avitohol, Awien, AxelBoldt, Babbage, BabelStone, Before My Ken,
Beland, Bender235, Benwing, BertK, Beyond My Ken, Bfinn, Bh1331, Bkonrad, Bobo192, Bobrayner, Bovineone, Brandmeister, CBDunkerson, CJLL Wright, CanadianLinuxUser, Carnun,
Cast, Cbdorsett, Chris the speller, ChrisGualtieri, Copana2002, CopperSquare, Croquant, DavidLeighEllis, Dbachmann, DePiep, DerBorg, Dfalccus, Diagraph01, Discographer, Discospinster,
DopefishJustin, Dougweller, DuendeThumb, Epbr123, Epolk, Evertype, Everyking, Fawcett5, Feeeshboy, Fgrosshans, FilipeS, Florian Blaschke, Flyer22, Flyguy649, Folajimi, Freelance
Intellectual, Frosty, Fruitpunchline, Furrykef, Fyrael, GDSmith, Gaius Cornelius, Galorr, Gene McCullough, Gengiskanhg, Ggpab, Giants27, Good Olfactory, Graham87, Hibernian, Hmains,
Hoopes, Ian Pitchford, Icairns, Ikiroid, Infrogmation, Ioscius, J.delanoy, Jeff3000, Jorge Stolfi, João Pedro Corrêa Eboli, Jprg1966, Juliancolton, K6ka, Kaldari, Kerotan, Koavf, Koenige, Kurtan,
Kwamikagami, LarsMarius, Leonard G., Leovizza, Ligulem, Linear77, Livajo, Lotje, MKar, MacedonianBoy, Madman2001, Makyen, Mark Arsten, Mark Dingemanse, Masoninman, Maunus,
Mdcarrasco, Mermaid from the Baltic Sea, Mikepanhu, Mimihitam, Mo-Al, Modernist, Morgan Leigh, N5iln, NawlinWiki, Nonstopdrivel, OGoncho, Oda Mari, Orenburg1, Peapub, Pengyanan,
PeterHuntington, Petri Krohn, Pigman, PimRijkee, Pinethicket, Poeloq, Pohick2, Pointlessforest, Ptcamn, Q'eqchi7, Qrfqr, Qualko, Rahlgd, RanchoRosco, Ranveig, Reach Out to the Truth,
Recognizance, Reddi, Ricardv46, Rjwilmsi, Rocketrod1960, RodC, Rokfaith, Royalguard11, Roylee, Sannaj, Sardanaphalus, Scarian, Seancdaug, Simon Burchell, SmartGuy Old, Snowolf,
Stevebritgimp, Szilas, Tagishsimon, The Fat Man Who Never Came Back, The Thing That Should Not Be, Thingg, Thumperward, Tobias Conradi, Tom harrison, Trappist the monk,
TwilightShade, Ugncreative Usergname, Val42, Velho, Voyevoda, Whitetiger1313, Wiki monde, Wingman4l7, Writtenright, Wywin, Yom, YourEyesOnly, Z10x, Zephyr2k, 240 anonymous
edits

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

Image:Maya-Maske.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Maya-Maske.jpg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0  Contributors: Wolfgang
Sauber (User:Xenophon)
File:NaranjoStela10Maler.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:NaranjoStela10Maler.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Photo by Teoberto Maler
File:Maya script reading direction.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Maya_script_reading_direction.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:Q'eqchi7
File:Tikalemblem.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Tikalemblem.jpg  License: GNU Free Documentation License  Contributors: Original uploader was Authenticmaya
at en.wikipedia
File:Mayan numerals 0-19 & 2 vertical examples.gif  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Mayan_numerals_0-19_&_2_vertical_examples.gif  License: Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0  Contributors: Fruitpunchline
File:Examples of how to calculate the value of Mayan numerals.gif  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Examples_of_how_to_calculate_the_value_of_Mayan_numerals.gif
 License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0  Contributors: Fruitpunchline
File:Palenque glyphs-edit1.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Palenque_glyphs-edit1.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:Kwamikagami
file:Commons-logo.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Commons-logo.svg  License: logo  Contributors: Anomie

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