Maya Hieroglyph

Maya Hieroglyph. The Maya hieroglyphics of the classic period compose the most advanced and complex system of embryonic writing of any Mesoamerican civilization.

Maya hieroglyphic texts were carved on the stelae or on temple walls and lintels, were modeled in stucco as building ornament, and were  incised on hand sized objects such as jade, bone or shell ornaments and painted on pottery and in books.

The book specimens are unusually interesting. The best specimen, the Dresden Codex, is a screen-fold manuscript about 20 centimeters high and several meters long painted on lime-sized bark paper or clothe. According to J.E.S Thompson, the Maya hieroglyphics combine simple phonetic and ideographic principles.

There was no alphabet, and no fully adequate key for their translation, which explains why only about 25 percent of them have been translated. The Maya hieroglyphics themselves are fantastically grotesque human, monster or deity head forms for the most part. In context, affixes were appended to principal glyphic elements. In Thompson’s opinion, Maya hieroglyphics treated wholly of time, astronomy, astrology, gods and ceremonies. Proskouriakoff, on the other hand, feels that some texts dealt with more mundane matters of dynastic succession and other specific human historical events.