Mayan glyphs
Ancient hieroglyphic script
Mayan glyphs are the written symbols of the ancient Maya civilization, used from roughly 300 BCE to the Spanish conquest.
The writing system combined logograms (symbols representing whole words) with syllabic signs, allowing scribes to record history, astronomy, and ritual on stone monuments, pottery, and bark-paper books.
Scholars spent decades deciphering Mayan glyphs.
- logogramsSymbols representing words
- hieroglyphicsSymbolic picture-based writing
- syllabaryWriting using sound-units
- Long Count calendarMesoamerican system tracking vast epochs
- codicesBound handwritten volumes
inscriptions · Dresden Codex · scribes · stone · epigraphy · decipherment · bloodletting · ritual sacrifice · ball court · stela · carved stone · phonetic symbols · jade carvings · kingship · quetzal · Mesoamerica · tablet · Long Count
- ancient communicationsmoke signal, hieroglyphs, carrier pigeon, pictographs, pictograms
- symbolssymbols, runes, symbol, asterisks, national symbol
- antiquitiesancient coins, ancient relics, ancient artifacts, ancient pottery, ancient seals
- writing historyalphabet, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, hieroglyphs, scripts
- writing systemsalphabet, vowel, alphabets, Cyrillic alphabet, consonant
- ancient artsculpture, sculptures, pottery, mosaics, murals
Mayan glyphsLatin alphabet
Standard Western letter system
Roman letters · Greek alphabet · Phoenician alphabet · English alphabet · ASCII text
Mayan glyphsLatin script
Western alphabetic writing system
Greek letters · Chinese characters · Hebrew script · Arabic script